Pearse Doherty (Donegal South West, Sinn Fein)
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To ask the Minister for Social Protection the current waiting times for the processing of domicilary care allowance applications; if she will provide in tabular form, for the past five years, the number of claims awarded on first application; the number of claims refused; and the number of claims received; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [8235/13]

Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)
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Currently, the average time to process an application for Domiciliary Care Allowance (DCA) from receipt to decision is approximately 8 weeks. The Department has been accepting new claims for DCA since 1st 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 number of applicants for DCA that were received, awarded and refused from April 2009 to December 2012 is set out in the table below.

Domiciliary Care Allowance applications – 2009 to 2012