Neale Richmond (Dublin Rathdown, Fine Gael)
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214. To ask the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection if she will confirm that additional resources are in place to ensure social welfare recipients who are supplying new bank details to their social welfare office do not experience delays or lose a payment due to the payment details not being changed on-time; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [48750/22]

Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
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Both Ulster Bank and KBC have announced their intention to leave the Irish market and have commenced communication with their customers, including customers of the Department who have their social welfare payments paid into their Ulster Bank and KBC accounts.

My Department been proactively engaged in putting in place arrangements to facilitate a streamlined and accessible process to allow impacted customers update their payment method. An enhanced easy to use online functionality has been developed so that customers can change their payment method on MyWelfare.ie at a time that best suits them. A paper based process is also available to those customers who are unable to use this functionality.Impacted customers have been contacted by the Department on a number of occasions to ensure they are aware of the options available to them.

Contact Centre personnel and scheme area staff have been made aware of the impending Ulster bank closure and have been given guidance on how to support customers who make contact and additional staff training has been made available to facilitate short notice change of payment method requests

I hope this clarifies the position for the Deputy.