Claire Kerrane (Roscommon-Galway, Sinn Fein)
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1056. To ask the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection further to Parliamentary Question No. 458 of 14 December 2021, the overall number of applications to the Covid-19 enhanced illness benefit scheme; the number of successful applications to the Covid-19 enhanced illness benefit scheme; the average waiting time from application to approval for Covid-19 enhanced illness benefit; if she will provide this data for November and December 2021 and to date in 2022 by week and in tabular form; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [2327/22]

Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
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COVID Illness Benefit (Enhanced Illness Benefit) is a scheme that was introduced in March 2020, to support people who are incapable of work or who are required to self-isolate, as a result of a COVID diagnosis or being a probable source of infection.  To date a total of 365,376 COVID Illness Benefit related claims have been processed of which 340,005 have received a payment.  

The majority of the standard Illness Benefit claims are automatically processed once medical evidence has been received from the customer, where an application is received and an e-Cert is submitted by a GP.

Over the past four weeks an average of some 31,300 COVID Illness Benefit applications have been received weekly with some 54,800 received in the first week of January. This compares to some 8,000 weekly applications in December. The medical evidence provided for the majority of these claims is a text from the HSE advising the person to self-isolate or that they have a COVID diagnosis. From 03 January 2022, confirmation of an order for antigen tests from the HSE or a PCR test booking is also accepted as medical evidence.

As advised previously it is not possible to differentiate between Illness Benefit and Enhanced Illness Benefit in claim processing statistics.  Processing statistics for Illness Benefit, which includes Enhanced Illness Benefit, for November saw some 73.58% of claims awarded within a week with 68.28% of claims awarded within a week in December 2021. 

While my Department has made changes to increase automation within the Enhanced Illness Benefit process which has helped improve processing times, many claims still require manual intervention. Additional staff from around the Department have also been redirected to assist with the processing of the increased volume of Enhanced Illness Benefit claims. The high volumes have resulted in some delays where manual intervention is still required and the Department is working to clear all claims as quickly as possible.  

See table below. This refers to the total customers in receipt of Enhanced Illness Benefit for each week since 1^stNovember.