Pearse Doherty (Donegal South West, Sinn Fein)
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Question 357: To ask the Minister for Social Protection if her attention has been drawn to the fact that welfare claims at a location (details supplied) were left for days without their social welfare and pension payments as the post office substations in question had run out of money; if this problem is specific to this area or more wide spread across the country; and the action she will take to ensure that this situation does not occur again. [23580/11]

Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)
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My Department is committed to providing a high quality service to our customers and to ensuring that all payments are made available on their due date. We offer a range of payment options to customers including payment at a local post office or to a bank or building society account or certain credit unions that have been authorised by the banking and credit union regulators. While the Department accounts for a large volume of retail customers in individual post offices, An Post also provide agency services for other companies including front line banking services and payment of utility bills etc. The Department has been advised by An Post that due to a heavy volume of business, Lucan Post Office experienced a greater than expected demand for cash in week ending 3rd September 2011 and as a result, was unable to deal with all of its customers. The nature and cause of this is not completely clear as yet. An Post made extra cash available at Lucan on Saturday and again on Monday to deal with the higher than usual level of financial transactions. An Post has advised that some 20 social welfare customers who could not be dealt with on the Friday or Saturday were dealt with on the following Monday.

An Post has advised that this occurrence was confined to Lucan Post Office.

My Department is engaging with An Post to ensure that all our customers will be paid on their due date and there is no repeat of this situation. While apologising to customers who were inconvenienced by what happened, An Post has offered this Department assurances that measures are being put in place to ensure that this will not happen again.