James Bannon (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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Question 63: To ask the Minister for Social and Family Affairs the processing time it takes for each individual social welfare office to deal with a claim for jobseeker's benefit to date in 2010 [15483/10]

Mary Upton (Dublin South Central, Labour)
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Question 77: To ask the Minister for Social and Family Affairs the latest details of the average wait per social welfare local and branch offices for jobseeker's payments with a breakdown by each office; and the action he is taking to address the waiting times at many offices. [15398/10]

Seymour Crawford (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
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Question 78: To ask the Minister for Social and Family Affairs the processing time it takes for a claim in respect of jobseeker's benefit to be dealt with to date in 2010 [15481/10]

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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Question 90: To ask the Minister for Social and Family Affairs the processing time for individual social welfare offices to deal with a claim for jobseeker's allowance to date in 2010 [15467/10]

Kieran O'Donnell (Limerick East, Fine Gael)
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Question 99: To ask the Minister for Social and Family Affairs the numbers of individuals on a national, county and local social welfare office basis waiting for their application for jobseeker's allowance and benefit to be processed [15470/10]

Seymour Crawford (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
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Question 101: To ask the Minister for Social and Family Affairs the processing time it takes for a claim in respect of jobseeker's allowance to be dealt with to date in 2010 [15480/10]

Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 63, 77, 78, 90, 99 and 101 together.

The national average processing times for jobseeker claims decided during March were 2.12 weeks for jobseeker's benefit and 7.10 weeks for jobseeker's allowance. These figures are a slight improvement on February 2010 when they stood at 2.32 weeks and 7.67 weeks respectively.

I set out below a table showing the processing times at each local office during March.

The total number of jobseekers awaiting a decision on their claim at 10 April 2010 was 52,815. This is a reduction of over 7,000 compared with the figures three months earlier on 9 January 2010 and represents 10% of the total jobseeker claimload nationwide.

I understand that even when the Live Register was at its lowest, there would always be about 10 per cent of claims awaiting a decision. The current performance should be seen in the context that in 2009 alone, local offices received over 670,000 jobseeker claims.

I also set out below a table showing the breakdown of jobseekers benefit (JB) and jobseekers allowance (JA) claims awaiting a decision at each local office. This data has been compiled from data that is maintained on a local office catchment area basis and these figures do not correspond exactly with county boundaries.

Deputies will be aware of the particular difficulties presented due to the huge rise in unemployment in the past 18 months or so and the pressure this has brought to bear on the network of local and branch offices and in the inspectorate.

To alleviate some of this pressure since May 2008, some 450 extra staff have been assigned to local offices, new Central Support Units and the Department's Inspectorate. At the same time the Department has been examining procedures and processes surrounding the claim acceptance and decisions process with a view to streamlining them and achieving greater efficiencies where possible. The initiatives introduced include:

an appointment system whereby claimants can have their claim taken and decided during the appointment. This particular initiative has helped greatly in reducing waiting times. We have this system in operation in 38 local offices and plan to extend it to further offices,

a more streamlined procedure for claimants moving to jobseekers allowance when their jobseekers benefit expires,

a streamlined process for people who had a claim in the previous two years,

application forms for the jobseeker schemes are now available on the Department's website which means that anyone who wants to make a claim can print the form at home and bring it to the local office completed, thereby reducing queuing times,

more straight-forward procedures for providing evidence of identity and address have been introduced, and

simplified processing methods for some claimants who work casually, part-time or are classed as Systematic Short-Time workers.

I appreciate the importance of getting claims decided as quickly as possible and I want to assure the House that staff in local offices and in the Department's inspectorate are doing all they can to ensure that claims are processed as quickly as possible.

Table 1

Average Processing times for Jobseeker claims in March 2010 in alphabetical order

Table 2

Jobseeker claims awaiting a decision – 10 Apr 2010

% Local Office Parent Office SWLO/SWBO Claimload Pending Pending

The figure of 52,815 (Pending) includes 1,007 Jobseeker's Benefit Credits Only claims.