Pearse Doherty (Donegal South West, Sinn Fein)
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Question 267: To ask the Minister for Social Protection the current waiting times for carer's allowance claims to be processed; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [30361/12]

Pearse Doherty (Donegal South West, Sinn Fein)
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Question 268: To ask the Minister for Social Protection if her attention has been drawn to the fact that some claimants are waiting up to 10 months for claims in respect of carer's allowance to be processed; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [30362/12]

Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 267 and 268 together.

Currently the average time taken to award a carer's allowance application is 28 weeks. There are currently approximately 8,640 new carer's allowance applications registered and awaiting a decision. Of these, there are 9 cases that have been awaiting a decision for more than 40 weeks. Certain cases take longer to decide for various reasons such as information required from a customer in order to decide a claim being unavailable or significantly delayed or where a complex case must be investigated by a social welfare inspector.

I acknowledge that the time taken to process carer's allowance claims at present is not satisfactory but I am satisfied that the Department is taking action to resolve the situation.

A major service delivery modernisation project is underway to improve the efficiency of administration of the carer's allowance scheme. This involves the deployment of information technology solutions and associated business process re-organisation. It is anticipated that the new system will introduce significant processing efficiencies and a quicker and more responsive service to the customers.

Full deployment of the new system for carer's allowance has completed this month. In tandem with the full implementation of the new system, a comprehensive business process improvement exercise is commencing on the 2nd July, the focus of which is to optimise performance and provide improved customer service. However it is expected to be a number of months before the backlog is reduced to an acceptable level.