Michael McCarthy (Cork South West, Labour)
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Question 288: To ask the Minister for Social Protection in respect of County Cork, the average time it takes a social welfare inspector to assess a person's claim following the initial submission of all relevant documentation to the local office; the subsequent amount of time it takes to process the particular claim following the inspection; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [11810/11]

Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)
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I understand the Deputy's question relates specifically to jobseekers schemes. In determining entitlement for jobseeker's allowance, a customer must satisfy a means test. The time taken to process individual claims varies significantly having regard to the circumstances in each case. Straightforward means-tested cases are "fast-tracked" by deciding officers in local offices. More complex cases are forwarded to inspectors who establish the details of the case by interviewing the customer in a local office or, if it is considered necessary, by undertaking a home visit. Factors outside my Department's control can impinge on the time taken to make a decision in any case. These factors include the supply of relevant information by the customer, employers, other EU countries or other third parties. Claim processing performance is monitored on an ongoing basis and staff re deployed as necessary to meet the requirements of fluctuating volumes of work. The following table shows the average processing time in weeks for claims in County Cork decided in April 2011:

Eoghan Murphy (Dublin South East, Fine Gael)
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Question 290: To ask the Minister for Social Protection the measures in place to ensure the speedy processing of entitlements and services for parents who have children with disabilities and care for them full-time; the improvements that are proposed; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [11823/11]

Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)
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The payments relating to disabled children administered by the Department include domiciliary care allowance and carer's allowance. Domiciliary care allowance is a payment to the parent or carer of a child who has a disability so severe that it requires the child to need care and attention or supervision substantially in excess of another child of the same age. The child must be likely to require this level of care and attention for at least 12 months. Every application is assessed by one of the Department's Medical Assessors. An individual medical opinion, based on the information submitted by the applicant in support of their claim, is offered in each case. The deciding officer then makes a decision having considered the medical opinion provided and all the other information available.

Applications for domiciliary care allowance are processed by date of receipt. It currently takes approximately eight weeks to process an application, which is in line with target. Entitlement to carer's allowance is based on satisfying medical, means and residency conditions. In determining entitlement to the allowance there are, in certain cases, unavoidable time lags involved in making the necessary investigations and enquiries to enable accurate decisions to be made. Delays can also arise if people applying for the allowance are not in a position to supply all the necessary information at the time of submitting their claim. Carer's allowance applications are currently taking approximately 12 weeks to process. A total of 3,815 applications were registered in the first three months of 2011 and 3,883 were processed in the same period, there are currently 4,509 applications awaiting a decision.

The main reason for the deterioration in the processing time for carer's allowance is due to staff being engaged in work on a major service modernisation project involving the development of IT functionality and associated business reorganisation. This work involves a significant level of data clean-up and related work to ensure the 51,000 existing carer's allowance customers can be successfully transferred onto the new IT platform. It is anticipated that the new system will introduce significant processing efficiencies and a quicker and more responsive service to the customer. I am pleased to say the modernisation project is currently on target for delivery in July 2011. The staff and other resources available to the Department are regularly reviewed having regard to the workload and competing priorities and the position continues to be kept under review.

Paul Connaughton (Galway East, Fine Gael)
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Question 291: To ask the Minister for Social Protection the reason a person (details supplied) in County Galway is not entitled to have their teeth cleaned under their PRSI entitlement. [11832/11]

Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)
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The dental treatment benefit scheme is an employment-based scheme, available to customers and their dependent partners who have paid a certain number of PRSI contributions. For claims made in 2011, customers aged over 25 years need the following to qualify: (1) a total of 260 Class A, H, E, or P PRSI contributions paid since first starting work; (2) 39 contributions either paid or credited in 2009; and (3) 13 contributions paid in any of the last three years. As the person concerned does not appear to meet any of these conditions, she is not currently qualified for dental benefit. In addition, it should be noted that following the budget changes introduced in January 2010, the dental benefit scheme currently provides a free dental examination to qualified customers and no longer provides for the cleaning of teeth. If the person concerned holds a medical card, she may be entitled to dental treatment under the Health Service Executive scheme.