Pearse Doherty (Donegal South West, Sinn Fein)
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499. To ask the Minister for Social Protection if she will list the waiting times a person may expect for an appointment with the Money Advice and Budgeting Service in each county-office area. [34335/13]

Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)
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The Money Advice and Budgeting Service ( MABS), under the aegis of the Citizens Information Board, provides a high quality personal service to assist people who are over-indebted and need help and advice in coping with debt problems, in particular those on low incomes and people living on social welfare payments.

The Money Advice and Budgeting Service is made up of a network of 53 companies which includes 51 local companies and 2 national companies, MABS ndl and National Traveller MABS. In addition, the MABS National Telephone Helpline is available from 9am to 8pm Monday to Friday and the MABS website can be accessed 24 hours a day at www.mabs.ie . In 2013 funding of some €19 million has been provided to MABS.

Information and immediate support on all aspects of money management and personal debt is available from the MABS Helpline. In many cases the Helpline can provide the help and support people need. However, if a caller needs to avail of the face-to-face service provided by a MABS Money Adviser, they will be directed to a local MABS office.

MABS operate an appointment scheduling system and this means that in some cases clients may have to wait a number of weeks for the next available appointment. While waiting for an appointment, clients can use MABS free self-help materials to take holding action and to begin the process of assessing their situation. The MABS Helpline can also support clients while they are awaiting their first appointment with a MABS money adviser.

The Citizens Information Board (CIB), which has responsibility for MABS, compiles information on the waiting times in each MABS office on a quarterly basis and posts it to the www.mabs.ie website. The most recent statistics available, compiled to end of June 2013, record that the average waiting time from first point of contact to first appointment with a money adviser is some 4.4 weeks. This is the average nationally and there are fluctuations between offices. Details are provided by county / office area in the table below.

Over half of MABS services have a waiting time of 4 weeks or less, 13 MABS services have a waiting time of above 4 weeks but no more than 6 weeks and eight have a waiting time greater than 6 weeks. MABS has dealt with over 2,000 Emergency clients since the beginning of the year. These clients are seen immediately without any waiting period. MABS is currently working with over 24,000 clients.

I am satisfied that MABS provides a high quality personal service to assist people in overcoming their indebtedness and managing their finances.

Client Waiting Times and Numbers at 30 June 2013