Fiona O'Loughlin (Kildare South, Fianna Fail)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

583. To ask the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection to set out the number of weeks persons are waiting for a decision to be made for carer's allowance; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [4085/18]

Regina Doherty (Meath East, Fine Gael)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

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.

Before a decision can be made on entitlement to carer’s allowance, evidence must be provided in respect of the care recipient’s care requirement, the level of care the carer provides and the carer’s means. In general, social welfare schemes with a number of complex qualifying conditions can take longer to process. This is compounded if the documentary evidence provided at initial application stage is incomplete or insufficient; this is often the case with carer’s allowance applications.

At the end of December 2017, the average waiting time for new carer's allowance (CA) applications was 17 weeks with 5,284 CA applications awaiting decision. The volume of CA applications on hands are also a consequence of a continued increased intake of claims with the number of applications for CA in 2017 26% higher than in 2015.

Staff have been re-assigned within the carer’s allowance area to work on claims processing and it is expected that this will improve the processing times for this scheme over the coming weeks.

I hope this clarifies the matter for the Deputy.