John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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641. To ask the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection the status of the review into the implementation of the new illness benefit system; the date for the publication of same; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [37263/19]

Regina Doherty (Meath East, Fine Gael)
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The review referred to is being conducted by a retired Commissioner from the Revenue Commissioners. The purpose of the review is to identify the core reasons for the issues experienced in 2018 when IB claims was migrated from a legacy platform (known as ISTS) to a newer platform known as BOMi. Most of the Department's schemes and services are successfully supported on the BOMi platform, however, Illness Benefit migration experienced a number of issues.

The investigation element of the review is now complete including the completion of interviews and meetings with relevant stakeholders including staff of the Illness Benefit Section. The compilation of findings and the drafting of the report is still ongoing. I understand that this will take some further time.

The Department intends to use the report to inform its approach to the migration of some other  large weekly payment processing scheme applications (e.g. Jobseekers, One Parent Family payments) onto the BOMi platform, and is therefore anxious that it be completed as soon as possible.

The Department expects that the report will be finalised before the end of 2019. As previously indicated, the report will be provided to the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Employment Affairs and Social Protection.

I trust this clarifies the matter for the Deputy.