Denis Naughten (Roscommon-South Leitrim, Independent)
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108. To ask the Tánaiste and Minister for Social Protection given her instruction to her officials to ensure that a neutral wording in respect of payment options is provided on her Department's application forms, if she will also ensure that persons who opted for payment via the bank in the past 12 months are written to, informed of the difficulty in accessing cash from the commercial bank, and asked to consider the more convenient and accessible option of availing of payments from their local post offices; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [30245/15]

Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)
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Increasing the scale by which State payments are delivered directly into a client’s bank account is a key objective of a number of Government policies. These include the National Payments Plan, the Department’s Payment Strategy, the Public Sector Reform Plan, the e-Government Strategy and other Government policies. These policies support improved customer service, reflect customer trends and preferences and can deliver administrative savings.

The Department continually reviews its approach to payments to ensure that our customers receive their payments in manner which is convenient to them and is consistent with what channel our customers want. The fact is that the majority of the Department's new customers now opt for electronic payments directly into bank accounts and the Department will facilitate such customer choice where appropriate.

In the context of the above, my department will not be writing, along the lines suggested by the Deputy, to customers who applied for payments directly to their bank accounts in the past 12 months.