Barry Heneghan (Dublin Bay North, Independent)
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718. To ask the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection the current average waiting time for disability allowance and for carer’s allowance applications, by county, in tabular form; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [63361/25]

Dara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail)
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I am pleased to inform the Deputy that the average number of weeks to award a Disability Allowance and Carer's Allowance claims are well inside the average processing time targets for these schemes of 10 weeks. Disability Allowance has remained consistently at 6 weeks throughout the year and the average number of weeks to award a Carer’s Allowance application is currently 5 weeks.

The Department is committed to providing a quality service to all its customers. This includes ensuring that applications are processed and that decisions on entitlement are made as quickly as possible.

Processing times vary across schemes, depending on the differing eligibility 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. Similarly, means-tested schemes can also require more detailed investigations and interaction with the customer, thereby lengthening the decision-making process.

As Disability Allowance and Carers Allowance applications are processed centrally on a date of receipt basis, the above information relating to county is not collated, therefore it is not possible to provide breakdowns of average waiting time by individual county.

I trust this clarifies the matter for the Deputy.