Aengus Ó Snodaigh (Dublin South Central, Sinn Fein)
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260. To ask the Minister for Social Protection his plans to recruit permanent staff to deal with current delays in all areas of his Department's services in view of difficulties in the processing of maternity benefit claims in County Donegal. [25274/17]

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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My Department, like all Government departments and agencies, is required to operate within a staff ceiling figure and a commensurate administrative staffing budget, which for this Department has involved reductions in staff numbers. Within these constraints, the Department is focusing on prioritising the filling of critical posts.

My Department is committed to providing a quality service to all its customers. This includes ensuring that applications are processed and that decisions on entitlement are made as quickly as possible. The staffing needs for all areas within the Department, including Maternity Benefit, are continuously reviewed, taking account of workloads, management priorities and the competing demands arising, to ensure that the best use is made of all available resources with a view to providing an efficient service to those who rely on the schemes operated by the Department.

I am pleased to inform the Deputy that additional staff have been assigned to this Department’s Buncrana office and that further additional staff are being assigned over the coming weeks. These measures should enable the section continue to meet the Departmental standard processing times for the Maternity Benefit scheme once the claims that have been delayed are processed.