Written answers

Tuesday, 9 July 2013

Department of Social Protection

Invalidity Pension Application Numbers

Photo of Bernard DurkanBernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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350. To ask the Minister for Social Protection the total number of applications for invalidity pension currently on hand, the likely timescale within which it is expected that a decision will be made, the degree, if any, to which she can speed up the processing of such cases; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [33537/13]

Photo of Joan BurtonJoan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)
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I am pleased to confirm that the backlog of claims awaiting action and decision, which stood at just over 7,000 in May 2012, has been cleared.

As at the end of June 2013 there are 1973 Invalidity Pension (IP) claims registered, actioned and awaiting information to finalise a decision. This includes approximately 579 cases which are being investigated under EU regulations or bi-lateral agreements. These cases are more complex and take longer to decide.

Where a claim is disallowed and the customer requests a review of the decision or appeals the decision to the Social Welfare Appeals Office, this requires an additional amount of time to finalise.

Following such a high volume of claim clearance in the second half of 2012, the resulting volume of appeals is similarly high. The time these appeal claims take to clear negatively affects the overall average time taken to award a claim. The average time taken to award claims in these schemes will continue to improve as appeals are worked through the system and cleared.

Excluding the current effect of the increased level of appeals in the system, the average time to decide a new invalidity pension claim is now 6 weeks.

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