Patrick Nulty (Dublin West, Independent)
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90. To ask the Minister for Social Protection the position regarding an invalidity pension application in respect of a person (details supplied) in Dublin 13 which had gone to appeal and which has been granted under special provision by her Department, only to be immediately subjected to a medical review; if her attention has been drawn to the concerns and worry that this is causing the applicant who has been awaiting their claim for nearly two years; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [32900/13]

Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)
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Invalidity pension (IP) is a payment for people who satisfy the contribution conditions and who are permanently incapable of work because of illness or incapacity. In order to ensure adequate controls of the scheme expenditure, the continuing eligibility of persons in receipt of IP is reviewed periodically in accordance with their assessed risk of a change in circumstances. During 2012, there was a backlog of new invalidity pension claims which meant that there was an unacceptable delay in processing of new claims. Following a major service delivery modernisation project and business process improvement in the scheme area, the backlog of claims was cleared and new invalidity pension claims are now actioned upon receipt.

Following a review of an initial decision to disallow on medical grounds, the person concerned was awarded invalidity pension on the 14th March 2013 and the award was backdated to the 29th April 2011 - the date of her initial application and any arrears due for that period were paid. On 4 June 2013, a review of the continuing medical eligibility of the person concerned was initiated based upon the effective start date of her claim i.e. April 2011. This did not take account of the fact that the award date in the case had been so recent. In the particular circumstances of this case, the continuing eligibility review will be deferred for a reasonable period. We appreciate that reviews may cause worry or concern to individual customers and apologise if any such concern was caused in this case. Customers are given a reasonable length of time to provide the information necessary for the review and, if there is any particular difficulty with meeting the time limit, they may request additional time.