Martin Kenny (Sligo-Leitrim, Sinn Fein)
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263. To ask the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection the length of time it takes for a medical assessor to access a carer's allowance application; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [41516/19]

Regina Doherty (Meath East, Fine Gael)
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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.

My Department is committed to providing a quality service to all its customers, ensuring that applications are processed and that decisions on entitlement are made as quickly as possible.

Processing times vary across schemes, depending on the differing qualification criteria. Long term social welfare schemes such Carer’s Allowance (CA), with a number of complex qualifying conditions can take longer to process. Before a decision can be made on entitlement to CA, 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. This is prolonged further if the documentary evidence provided at initial application stage is incomplete or insufficient; this is often the case with carer’s allowance applications. Medical Assessors have access to a customer CA claim inside a few days of the Department receiving the application.

The average processing time for the award of a Carer's Allowance claim from January 2019 to September 2019 was 14 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.