John Perry (Sligo-North Leitrim, Fine Gael)
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Question 35: To ask the Minister for Social and Family Affairs the number of staff and the grades of same, who have been transferred either on a full time or part time basis from dealing with fraud to tackling delays in processing social welfare applications; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [17096/09]

Mary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)
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Over the past two months a total of five executive officers who normally deal with fraud investigation have been assigned to claims decisions work. A further two executive officers involved in fraud investigation have been assigned to means assessment.

While these were full-time reassignments, they were only for short periods. Most of these officers involved have reverted to their normal roles. A further four staff (2 executive officers, 1 staff officer and 1 clerical officer) have been partially redeployed from Control work to claims processing. Approximately two thirds of their time is now devoted to claims processing with one-third for Control activity.

The management of resources, including the assignment of staff is a matter for each Regional Manager at any given time, having regard to the volumes of claims to be processed in their region. These reassignments were required to deal with backlogs arising on the jobseekers allowance scheme.