Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Aontú)
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496. To ask the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection the processing time and backlog in terms of the number of applications for new invalidity pension claims; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [51148/22]

Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
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My Department is committed to providing a quality service to all customers, ensuring that claims are processed as quickly as possible and that backlogs are kept to a minimum.

Processing times for new applications vary across schemes, depending on the differing qualification criteria. Schemes that require a high level of documentary evidence from the customer, particularly in the case of illness-related schemes, can take longer to process. Delays can arise if information is required from social security organisations in other jurisdictions and where additional information has been requested from the applicant but remains outstanding.

The processing target for the Invalidity Pension (IP) scheme is to award 90% of applications within 10 weeks. Currently the average number of weeks to award an IP claim in September 2022 is 9 weeks and the average number of weeks to award an IP claim in 2022 to the end of September was 7 weeks. There were 1,920 new applications awaiting decision at the end of September.

I hope this clarifies the matter for the Deputy.

Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Aontú)
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497. To ask the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection the processing time and current backlog in terms of the number of appeals for invalidity pension; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [51149/22]

Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
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The Social Welfare Appeals Office functions independently of the Minister for Social Protection and of the Department and is responsible for determining appeals against decisions in relation to social welfare entitlements.

All claim decisions taken by the Department’s Deciding Officers and Designated Persons are appealable to the Chief Appeals Officer. In any year around 85% of all claims are awarded by the Department and just 2% are appealed. The Social Welfare Appeals Office and the Department endeavour to ensure that these cases are dealt with as promptly as possible.

The time taken to process an appeal reflects a number of factors including that the appeals process is a quasi-judicial process with Appeals Officers being required to decide all appeals on a ‘de-novo’ basis. In addition, appeals decisions are themselves subject to review by the High Court and decisions have to be formally written up to quasi-judicial standards.

The desire to process appeals quickly has to be balanced with the need to ensure that decisions are consistent, of high quality and made in accordance with the appropriate legislative provisions and the general principles of fair procedures and natural justice. Further improvements in appeals processing times are a priority for the Chief Appeals Officer.

The table below provides the average processing times for Invalidity Pension appeals for the year 2021 and for the period from 1 January to 30 September 2022.

There was a total of 379 Invalidity Pension appeals on hand at the end of September 2022.

I trust this clarifies the matter for the Deputy.