Maurice Quinlivan (Limerick City, Sinn Fein)
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636. To ask the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection to examine the case of an appeal by a person (details supplied); and if he will make a statement on the matter. [25988/25]

Dara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail)
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The Social Welfare Appeals Service is a Service 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 Chief Appeals Officer has advised me that an appeal for this customer was received on the 16th of April 2024 and due to a backlog of appeals to be registered at the time, it was registered on the 4th of June 2024. In accordance with the statutory requirements the relevant Departmental papers and the comments of the Deciding Officer on the matter raised in the appeal were sought. The Department also considered whether their first instance decision could be revised during this period.

The requested papers were received in the Social Welfare Appeals Office on the 6th of November 2024. Due to the volume of appeals on hand and to be fair to all customers, appeals are generally dealt with in chronological order. Once reached for consideration the appeal was assigned to an Appeals Officer on the 3rd of March 2025 and a decision was issued on the same date.

The Chief Appeals Officer apologises and regrets the delays experienced by this customer. I can assure the Deputy that the Chief Appeals Officer is taking all additional measures to reduce the time taken to process all appeals. 20 additional staff have now been appointed as Appeals Officers and are making appeal decisions.

The customer is currently in receipt of Supplementary Welfare Allowance. Should they have new evidence it remains open to them to submit a request for a section 317 review or alternatively submit a new application.

I trust this clarifies the matter for the Deputy.