Maurice Quinlivan (Limerick City, Sinn Fein)
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211. To ask the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection the estimated time for a payment to be awarded for a carer's allowance; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [49850/18]

Regina Doherty (Meath East, Fine Gael)
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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.

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.

Carer's Allowance (CA) is a means-tested payment, made to a person who is habitually resident in the State and providing full-time care and attention to a child or an adult who has such a disability that they require that level of care. An increased payment can be made where full-time care is being provided to two people.

The average waiting time in October for new CA applications was 17 weeks. Staff have recently been re-assigned to the CA area to work on claims processing and this should lead to a reduction in processing times.

I hope this clarifies the matter for the Deputy.