Maurice Quinlivan (Limerick City, Sinn Fein)
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587. To ask the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection the expected timeframe for a decision to be made on an application for the State pension, contributory and non-contributory; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [12918/21]

Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
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My Department is committed to ensuring that State pension claims are processed as quickly as possible. Processing times vary across schemes, depending on the differing qualification criteria. All claims processing is kept under active review.

The operational target for State pension (contributory) claims is 90% of timely applications awarded (where qualified) by entitlement date, currently the applicant's 66th birthday. According to the latest figures available to end February 2021, 95% of these applications were processed by date of entitlement with an average processing time of 5 weeks.

The State pension (non-contributory) scheme (SPNC) has a performance target of 75% of new claims to be awarded (where qualified) within 12 weeks of receipt. The average processing time achieved for SPNC claims to end February 2021 was 88% within 12 weeks with an average processing time of 6 weeks.

Processing of all applications is dependent on the completeness of the application and the availability of all the required information.

I hope this clarifies the position for the Deputy.