Gary Gannon (Dublin Central, Social Democrats)
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181. To ask the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection if there are currently delays to applications for carer’s allowance; and the average length of time for an application for carer’s allowance to be complete. [4969/21]

Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
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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.

There are no delays in processing claims once all of the necessary information is provided to establish entitlement to Carer's Allowance. The average number of weeks to award new Carer's Allowance applications has remained consistently at 4 weeks since September 2020.

Significant improvements have been achieved in reducing the average time to process claims over the past year. In 2020 the average number of weeks to award a new Carer's Allowance claim was 7 weeks, compared to 14 weeks in 2019.

I hope this clarifies the position for the Deputy.