Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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217. To ask the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection the type of social welfare payment currently taking the longest to process; the degree to which the time taken to process all applications has fluctuated in the past five years to date; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [43845/19]

Regina Doherty (Meath East, Fine Gael)
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The type of social welfare payment currently taking the longest to process is Child Benefit, EU Regulation Claims with an average time to award of 24 weeks at the end of September last. These claims require my Department to source information from other EU member states, which may take some time. I note, however, that the average number of such claims per year is approximately 4,000 - that represents roughly 3% of Child Benefit claims or 0.3% of all Social Welfare claims. The average processing time for other Child Benefit claims is two weeks.

A breakdown (where available) of the average time to award claims in each of the schemes under my Department's remit in each of years 2014 to 2018 and at the end of September 2019 is detailed in the attached tabular statement.

Average time to award claims (weeks) in each of the years 2014 to 2018 and at the end of September 2019.