Martin Browne (Tipperary, Sinn Fein)
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396. To ask the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection her views on whether it is appropriate for a person (details supplied) to be left waiting six months for a decision from the social welfare appeals office. [21226/23]

Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
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The Social Welfare Appeals Office is an Office of the Department of Social Protection which is responsible for determining appeals against decisions in relation to social welfare entitlements. Appeals Officers are independent in their decision making functions.

The Social Welfare Appeals Office has advised me that an appeal by the person concerned was registered in that office on 21 November 2022. It is a statutory requirement of the appeals process that the relevant Departmental papers and comments by the Deciding Officer on the grounds of appeal be sought. These papers were returned to the Appeals Office on 23 January 2023 and referred to an Appeals Officer on 21 February 2023. The Appeals Officer, having fully considered all of the available evidence, decided to disallow the appeal of the person concerned by way of a summary decision. The person concerned was notified of the Appeals Officer’s decision on 23 March 2023.

This is a processing time of 17 weeks from the date the appeal was registered in the Appeals Office. The current average processing time for a disability allowance appeal where there is a summary decision is 17.2 weeks. Therefore, the appeal in question took around the average time to process.

Significant efforts and resources have been devoted to improvements in the appeal process in recent years. There is active engagement between the Appeals Office and the Department to ensure that the appeals process operates efficiently and that where the Deciding Officer's decision is not revised in favour of the appellant that the appeal file papers are provided as quickly as possible to the Appeals Office for consideration by an Appeals Officer. The desire to process appeals quickly has to be balanced with the competing demand to ensure that decisions are consistent and of high quality and made in accordance with the legislative provisions and the general principles of fair procedures and natural justice. However, it fully recognised that improvements in appeals processing times are necessary and this is a priority for the Chief Appeals Officer.