Lucinda Creighton (Dublin South East, Fine Gael)
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Question 104: To ask the Minister for Social and Family Affairs the effect that action by staff has had on applications for social welfare; and if he will provide a breakdown of the cause of delays [15494/10]

Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)
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The overall response to the industrial action is being managed centrally by the Department of Finance with input from all Government Departments, including the Department, and other public service sectors. The industrial action is being closely monitored in the Department on a daily basis and the Department's management is maintaining contacts with the unions concerned to ensure, insofar as possible, that the negative impact on the Department's customers is minimised.

In the main, the industrial action in the Department involved staff not answering telephones; failing to provide counter services in public offices for various periods; failure to complete certain statistical work returns; and failure to use certain computer systems. It also involved a ban on overtime in the Illness Benefit area from 22 February 2010 and this ban was extended to other areas of the Department for four weeks from 15th March to 9th April.

In five local offices the Civil Public and Services Union instructed staff not to process medical certificates locally but to send them by post to the central Illness Benefit Section in Dublin. This would have resulted in a delay of one or two days in issuing payment to the customers affected. While the number of claims awaiting a decision has stayed broadly the same at about 6,800 over this period, there was an increase in the time taken to process Illness Benefit claims from about 6 days to an average of 8 days during the period of the industrial action.

In some areas, because staff were not answering phones or attending the public counters, backlogs were reduced and processing times improved as these staff were diverted to claim processing. Consequently, there is no backlog of claims that can be directly attributed to the industrial action.

However there have been significant arrears of jobseekers claims over the past 18 months or so due to the huge influx of applications for these schemes. However, the number of claims awaiting a decision has been declining every week since the end of January, when they stood at over 62,000 to 47,500 at week ending 27 March. The number increased to 52,800 after the Easter break.

However, this is normal, as there is always a significant increase in claims from school related workers around any school holiday period. This, combined with the impact of the shorter working weeks at this time, has resulted in an increase in the number of jobseeker claims awaiting a decision.

Overall, the number of jobseeker claims awaiting a decision expressed as a percentage of the entire claimload nationally is now at about 10%. This is the level of claims awaiting a decision that applied even when the Live Register was at its lowest. I know there are some local offices where the percentage of claims awaiting a decision is much higher but we are working to bring them in line with the national average as quickly as possible.

The work to rule is ongoing. However following discussions between the unions and the Department of Finance, there has been some relaxation of the industrial action.