John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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1803. To ask the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection the timeframe for new applications for disability allowance; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [41981/25]

Dara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail)
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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.

The processing target for the Disability Allowance scheme is to award 75% of applications within 10 weeks. Currently this target is exceeded the average number of weeks to award a DA claim in July 2025 is 6 weeks.

John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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1804. To ask the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection the timeframe for new applications for carer's allowance; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [41982/25]

Dara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail)
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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 medical schemes, can take longer to process.

The processing target for the Carer's Allowance (CA) scheme is to award 80% of applications within 10 weeks. Currently the average number of weeks to award a CA claim (June 2025) is 5 weeks.

John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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1805. To ask the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection the timeframe for new applications for invalidity pension; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [41983/25]

Dara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail)
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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.

The processing target for the Invalidity Pension scheme is to award 90% of applications within 10 weeks. Currently the average number of weeks to award an IP claim in June 2025 is 5 weeks.

John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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1806. To ask the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection the timeframe for new applications for domiciliary care allowance; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [41984/25]

Dara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail)
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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 medical schemes, can take longer to process.

The processing target for the Domiciliary Care Allowance (DCA) scheme is to award 90% of applications within 9 weeks. Currently, the average number of weeks to award a DCA claim (June 2025) is 6 weeks.

John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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1807. To ask the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection the timeframe for new applications for back-to-school clothing and footwear allowance; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [41985/25]

Dara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail)
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The Back to School Clothing and Footwear Allowance scheme provides a once-off payment to eligible families to assist with the costs of clothing and footwear when children start or return to school each autumn. The scheme operates from June to September each year.

The allowance is payable in respect of eligible children between the ages of 4 and 17 in respect of whom a Child Support Payment (previously known as Increase for a Qualified Child) is being paid and eligible children between the ages of 18 and 22 who are returning to full-time second level education and in respect of whom a Child Support payment is being paid.

The scheme opened to new applications on 9 June 2025. Up to close of business on Wednesday 23 July, 35,615 applications have been received, of which 25,797 have been processed.

Officers are processing applications in date of receipt order. On Thursday 24 July, officers were processing applications received on Thursday 10 July.

The Back to School Clothing and Footwear Allowance scheme remains open to new applications on www.mywelfare.ie/ until 30 September 2025.