Thomas Gould (Cork North Central, Sinn Fein)
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250. To ask the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection the current average wait time for an additional needs payment and an urgent needs payment in Cork city. [45303/22]

Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
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The Supplementary Welfare Allowance (SWA) scheme is the safety net within the overall Social Welfare system in that it provides assistance to eligible people in the State whose means are insufficient to meet their needs and those of their dependents. Supports provided under the SWA scheme can consist of a basic weekly payment, a weekly or monthly supplement in respect of certain expenses, as well as single additional needs payments.

Under the SWA scheme, my Department can make additional needs payments to help meet expenses that a person cannot pay from their weekly income. This is an overarching term used to refer to exceptional and urgent needs payments, and certain supplements to assist with ongoing or recurring costs that cannot be met from the client’s own resources and are deemed to be necessary.

Payments are made at the discretion of the officers administering the scheme, taking into account the requirements of the legislation, and all the relevant circumstances of the case in order to ensure that the payments target those most in need of assistance.

The CWS 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. Based on the available data, it is estimated that 50% of applications for Additional Needs Payments are finalised within 0-4 weeks and 90% are finalised within 0-8 weeks. We are focusing our resources on reducing our processing times and it is anticipated that these times will reduce over the coming weeks; this will be dependent, however, on the volumes of new applications received. Where an application is not finalised within 0-4 weeks, this is generally due to additional information or documentation being requested from the customer to support their application.

I wish to reassure the Deputy that claim processing is kept under active review and we will continue in our efforts to further improve the service.

I trust this clarifies the matter.

Bríd Smith (Dublin South Central, People Before Profit Alliance)
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251. To ask the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection the estimated cost of raising all social insurance and social protection payments to €300 per week, excluding disability allowance, invalidity and blind pensions, and all carer’s payments; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [45306/22]

Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
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The estimated full year cost of increasing the rate of all weekly social insurance and assistance payments to €300 per week, excluding disability allowance, invalidity and blind pensions, and all carer’s payments, with a proportionate increase for qualified adults is €3.8 billion.

This costing is based on the estimated number of recipients in 2022 and is subject to change in light of emerging trends and subsequent revision of the estimated number of recipients.

Denis Naughten (Roscommon-Galway, Independent)
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252. To ask the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection the number of claims submitted and the number of persons who have received enhanced illness benefit for Covid-19; the number of persons who were in payment for two, four, six, eight and ten weeks, respectively; the number of persons who transferred to illness benefit after the ten-week payment period had expired; the number of these claims that were in payment for more than two weeks; the number that were transferred to disability allowance after the ten-week payment period had expired; the number of these claims that were in payment for more than two weeks; the number of such claims that were rejected or pending; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [45310/22]

Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
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Enhanced Illness Benefit (EIB) is a form of Illness Benefit that is payable to self-employed persons or an employee who is told to self-isolate or has been diagnosed with Covid-19. It is important to note that a person may have received Enhanced Illness Benefit on more than one occasion since the payment was introduced, and thus have more than one claim for Enhanced illness Benefit. The number of claims received and the individuals claiming EIB up to 11th September 2022 are provided in Table 1.

Table 1: Number of EIB Claims and EIB Recipients

EIB is payable for up to 10 weeks where a person is diagnosed with Covid-19. In a case where a person continues to be ill beyond 10 weeks, standard Illness Benefit may be paid for an extended period, based on the person’s continued eligibility. Details on the duration of EIB claims are set out in Table 2. The data in Table 2 refers to the claim duration, based on the certification dates.

Table 2: EIB claim durations

Of the 7,417 claims with a total certification period of 10 or more weeks, these relate to 5,637 individuals of whom 4,056 transferred to Illness Benefit payments, and were certified for 2 or more weeks. 98 persons who had at least one EIB claim of more than 10 weeks duration are now in receipt of Disability Allowance. A total of 73 people had a Disability Allowance claim rejected, while 27 people had Disability Allowance claims pending as of end-August 2022.