Gerry Adams (Louth, Sinn Fein)
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22. To ask the Minister for Social Protection if she will provide details of the numbers of persons who applied for invalidity pension in each county for the years 2010, 2011 and 2012; the numbers of those who were refused and granted and of those who were refused, the number that appealed the decision and the number that were successful and unsuccessful in those appeals; of those applications which were successful before and after appeal, the number of cases that were decided solely on the condition of being incapable of work for at least 12 months and likely to be incapable of work for at least another 12 months.; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [25709/13]

Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)
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The information requested by the Deputy is set out below.

Invalidity Pension Claims

A breakdown of Invalidity claims awarded and disallowed is not available from December 2010-June 2011. A dual payments system was in operation from December 2010 until all claims were migrated onto a new computer platform in May 2011.

* Breakdown for period January 2010 - November 2010 only included

# Breakdown for period June 2011 - December 2011 only included

A full year breakdown of decisions by County is not available prior to 2012. Figures for 2012 are shown in the table below and relate to current address.

Invalidity Pension Claims 2012

*Claims with no entry for county may be resident abroad.

Social Welfare Appeals Office statistics are not maintained on a County by County basis and the Chief Appeals Officer is not in a position, therefore, to supply the specific information sought. However, the table below gives information in relation to the total number of appeals in the years in question.

Invalidity Pension Appeals - 2008 - 2012

(*) Where a person has received a decision to disallow a payment, it is open to them to ask for a review by a deciding officer. These figures reflect those cases where a disallowed claim was revised on review by a deciding officer prior to determination by an Appeals Officer. Generally these cases arise where a person submits additional information, not already considered, in support of their claim following a decision to disallow.

Decisions in relation to Invalidity Pension encompass all aspects of the conditionality e.g. PRSI contributions and medical conditions. For those claims refused, it is not possible to say whether it was on PRSI conditions, medical conditions or both. However, it is safe to say that the majority of claims are refused on medical grounds.