David Stanton (Cork East, Fine Gael)
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Question 18: To ask the Minister for Social Protection with regard to persons in receipt of jobseeker's benefit or jobseeker's allowance payments, if her attention has been drawn to delays in payments being reinstated if the jobseekers sign off for a number of weeks to avail of full-time temporary work and then return to the live register after the work is completed; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [36284/11]

Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)
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In cases where a jobseeker customer takes up temporary work for periods of up to 4 weeks, or avails of a training course of up to 8 weeks, arrangements are in place to temporarily suspend the claim so that it can be re-instated without delay when the work or training finishes. When a customer receives an offer of employment which is expected to last no more than four weeks, they should tell their social welfare local office that they will be working for a short period only. It is necessary for the customer to state that the work is expected to last for a maximum of four weeks or that the training will last no more than eight weeks. Customers are informed of these arrangements when making a jobseeker's claim and this information is also available on the Department's website. This procedure is in operation across the full range of the Department's network of local and branch offices.

Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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Question 19: To ask the Minister for Social Protection the steps she can or will take to eliminate backlogs resulting in delays in the issue of the various payments for which her Department is responsible with particular reference to repetitive procedures, duplicate means testing as between the community welfare service and her Department proper despite centralised control; if she will examine the cause or causes for contradictory and unsustainable opinion and its effects on applicants for carer's allowance, domiciliary care allowance, disability allowance, invalidity pension, rent support, mortgage interest relief and/or similar payments; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [36291/11]

Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)
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The Department is committed to delivering the best possible service to its customers and works to ensure that claims are processed in the most efficient way possible, having regard to the eligibility conditions that apply to each scheme and to ensure, insofar as is possible, that funding is targeted at those most in need. Processing times vary across schemes, depending on the differing qualification criteria. For example means assessments are required for social assistance schemes and customers must also satisfy the habitual residence conditions. Medical assessment is required for long-term illness schemes. In the case of some insurance-based schemes, it may be necessary to ascertain details of foreign insurance records.

In managing these issues the Department has also had to adapt to a large increase in the volume of claims as economic conditions deteriorated and the scope of schemes was expanded. In order to meet this challenge, the department has embarked on a major programme of process redesign and modernisation, including the deployment of new computer systems. New systems have been deployed this year to manage the processing of invalidity pensions and carers' allowance claims and are currently being deployed to modernise the processing of disability allowance claims. This deployment of new systems is a very resource intensive task and has, as a consequence, had a negative impact during the development and deployment phase on processing performance. Once the programme of deployment is completed I expect that performance will recover and improve. In the meantime the Department is taking all steps available to it to augment resources in order to process claims.

For example, since May 2008, 794 staff have been assigned to the Department, mainly through the transfer and redeployment of staff from other Government departments. In addition, the Department has recruited new medical assessors and appointed additional staff to the social welfare appeals office. The Department also makes judicious use of overtime and employs temporary staff as appropriate to address particular service issues as they arise.

In order to offer a more streamlined, efficient and integrated service to customers, the Department is also undergoing a process of intensive planning and organisational change in establishing the new National Employment and Entitlements Service (NEES). The establishment of the NEES under the management of my Department involves bringing together the Community Welfare Service (CWS), the Employment Services and Community Employment Programmes of FÁS, the Rural Social Scheme and Community Services Programme from the Dept of Community, Equality and the Gaeltacht and the Redundancy and Insolvency Schemes from the Dept of Enterprise, Trade and Innovation.

It is my intention that the NEES will integrate all employment and benefit support services in a single delivery unit. This new service will provide a coherent integrated and more personalised service to customers and will help minimise the duplication that characterised services which were provided separately in the past.

With regard to the issue of contradictory opinions relating to the assessment of application for various schemes, I take it that the Deputy is referring in particular to medical assessment of claimant conditions. In this regard, the Department's Medical Assessors are fully qualified and experienced practitioners who provide a second opinion to that of the person's own doctor for the guidance of deciding officers. In carrying out assessments the Medical Assessor considers all medical evidence presented and expresses an opinion based on findings. All assessments are carried out in accordance with the accepted guidelines of the Irish Medical Council. Every effort is made to ensure that the interests of persons called for assessment are fully safeguarded.

If a decision, based on the opinion of a Medical Advisor, is unfavourable to a customer, the customer has a right of appeal to the independent Social Welfare Appeals Office. Before an appeal is heard by an Appeals Officer, the customer is afforded a second medical assessment by a different Medical Assessor to the one who gave the original unfavourable opinion.