Pearse Doherty (Donegal South West, Sinn Fein)
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125. To ask the Minister for Social Protection if she will provide in tabular form the current waiting times per social welfare payment for the processing of applications by her Department; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [21013/13]

Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)
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The average number of weeks to award claims from the date of application is the main statistic collated by my Department to measure waiting times for the processing of applications for Social Welfare payments. I have attached for the Deputy’s information a tabular statement detailing the average number of weeks to award claims, where available, for schemes under the auspices of my Department for claims processed in March 2013. There have been significant reductions in backlogs in the past year for family income supplement, carer’s allowance, disability allowance and invalidity pension which will feed into processing times for these schemes in the coming months.