Aengus Ó Snodaigh (Dublin South Central, Sinn Fein)
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413. To ask the Minister for Social Protection if she will provide a table showing the number of domiciliary care allowance applications granted and refused; and the average length of time it took to process those applications each month for the past two years. [9543/14]

Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)
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Domiciliary Care Allowance is a monthly payment for children, aged under 16 years, with a severe disability requiring ongoing care and attention substantially over and above the care and attention usually required by a child of that age. Table 1 refers to the outcome of applications processed over the past 2 years. Many applications are allowed following a review of the original decision, when the customer supplies additional information on the care needs of the child. Administrative improvements, as recommended in the DCA scheme review are due to come into operation shortly and it is anticipated that these will improve the quality of information received at the initial claim stage and lead to better outcomes in the first instance.

Table 2 refers to the average processing time, in weeks, from receipt to award, each month for the past 2 years.

Table 1. Domiciliary Care Allowance applications – 2012 and 2013

Table 2. Average time receipt to award each month – January 2012 to 2014