Eoghan Murphy (Dublin South East, Fine Gael)
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Question 86: To ask the Minister for Social Protection if her attention has been drawn to the fact that overtime has been approved for senior community welfare officers in the rent unit in order to bring rent applications up to date; if her further attention has been drawn to the fact that this is at a higher cost than maintaining those staff on a lower wage who have recently been made redundant and who are now applying for welfare benefits. [28041/11]

Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)
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Late last year agreement was reached between the Health Service Executive (HSE) and unions representing the Community Welfare Officers that the staff of the Community Welfare Service (CWS) would transfer to the Department of Social Protection with effect from 1st January 2011 on a secondment basis initially. The period of secondment lasted for 9 months until the end of September 2011. During this period these staff remained employees of the HSE but were subject to the general direction and control of the Minster for Social Protection.

From 1 October 2011 these staff are transferred fully to the Department as civil servants and are accountable to the Minister in the same way as other civil servants.

I have been advised that a number of staff in the CWS were employed in a temporary capacity by the HSE in 2010 for a period of six months, including some of the staff in the rent unit in question. These contracts were subsequently extended to June 2011 from when they were gradually withdrawn. It was never intended that these staff would be retained on a permanent basis or that they would transfer to this department. They remain employed elsewhere in the HSE.

In the context of the transfer of functions from the HSE to the Department a number of Transition Managers were appointed from within the Community Welfare Service, to work with the Department of Social Protection to oversee the transfer of the service to the Department. The relevant Transition Managers are currently in the process of examining the service implications arising from the loss of these temporary staff.

Due to the high volume of applications received and the loss of these staff a short term backlog of applications arose. Overtime working was approved to clear this backlog.

The backlog is currently being processed and it is expected that there will be no backlog by the middle of October. Thereafter it is not envisaged that overtime will be required to maintain the day-to-day operation of the unit. Applications received up to the middle of September have been assessed for entitlement.