Mairéad Farrell (Galway West, Sinn Fein)
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589. To ask the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection the number of appeal applications his Department has received; and the number of appeal decisions issued in each year since 2019, in tabular from. [25157/25]

Dara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail)
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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 Annual Report of the Chief Appeals Officer is published each year and includes the detailed information requested. The reports for years 2015 to 2023 are available on the Social Welfare Appeals Office website. (News and Publications from the Social Welfare Appeals Office (www.gov.ie) and set out the information requested by the Deputy.

The figures for 2024 are provisional. All statistics are currently being finalised and verified and will be published in the annual report shortly. The provisional figures for 2024 are that 40,090 appeals were registered, with 28,426 processed during the same period. The annual report will provide detailed information on the increase in registrations in 2024, part of which is as a result of administrative process changes.

The time taken to process appeals reflects the need to consider each decision in detail and, in many cases, to examine additional information submitted at appeal stage and, in some cases to seek further information by way of correspondence or oral hearing. The Chief Appeals Officer continues to monitor processing times and every effort is made to reduce the time taken to process an appeal. However, the drive for efficiency must be balanced with the competing demand to ensure that decisions are consistent and made in accordance with the provisions set out in primary legislation and regulations

The Chief Appeals Officer has put in place measures to improve appeals processing performance and in response to the increase in the number of registered appeals. 20 additional staff have now been assigned and trained and began processing appeals at the start of 2025. In addition new Appeals Regulations have come into effect from the 28th of April which provide, among other things, for simpler processes and specified response times. These should further help to reduce processing times.

I trust this clarifies the matter for the deputy.