Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein)
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Question 597: To ask the Minister for Social Protection the reasons she refused a domiciliary care allowance in respect of a person (details supplied); if she will explain the way her Department arrived at the opinion that the person, despite having a myriad of diagnosed complex conditions requires no additional care to that of a child without a similar diagnosis; the average time that initial domiciliary care allowance applications take to process; the average time domiciliary care allowance appeal applications take to process; the percentage of applications initially refused that are then awarded on appeal for the years ending 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010 and 2011. [18699/12]

Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)
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An application for domiciliary care allowance was received on 11 November 2011. This application was referred to one of the Department's Medical Assessors who found that the child was not medically eligible for the allowance. A letter issued on 7 February 2012 advising the person concerned of the decision. She subsequently lodged an appeal against this decision and supplied additional information on her child's condition. As part of the appeal process her application, along with the extra information she provided, was reviewed by a second Medical Assessor and the child has been deemed to be medically eligible for the allowance. The person concerned was notified of the decision on 26 March 2012.

It can currently take up to 8 weeks to process an application for domiciliary care allowance. The current average times to process domiciliary care allowance appeals decided by summary decision is 27.6 weeks and 38.2 weeks for those requiring an oral appeal hearing. The Department has been accepting new claims for domiciliary care allowance (DCA) since 1 April 2009. Statistics relating to the allowance for the period prior to April 2009 are a matter for the HSE, the previous administrators of the scheme.

The overall number of appeals for DCA that were received, awarded and refused in each year from April 2009 to end 2011 is set out below.

Domiciliary Care Allowance Appeals - April 2009 to 2011