asked the Minister for Social Welfare the reason for the long delays in the payment of sickness benefit from his Department; and if, in view of the hardships being caused to persons entitled to benefit, he will have the position rectified.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Sickness Benefit Payments.
41.
I cannot accept the Deputy's imputation that there are long delays generally in the payment of disability benefit. There are some cases in which for one reason or another entitlement to benefit cannot be determined as promptly as in the general run of claims. This is particularly so in cases where entitlement may be based on contributions paid in Great Britain, and in cases where an employer has failed to stamp a claimant's insurance card, but these form a very small percentage of the total volume of cases dealt with by my Department.
If the Deputy will give particulars of the specific case or cases in which he is interested, I will have inquiries made and let him know the position.
Is there anything the Minister can do to speed up the transfer of, say, British records to this country for the purposes of both sickness benefit and unemployment benefit? This causes a lot of trouble.
I must say that when we get in touch we find they are very co-operative in giving us assistance but sometimes we do not get the correct information and on this account there is some delay. This whole question of delay annoys me considerably and I have been looking into it. The ratio of cases where delay occurs is only about one in a thousand. In every single case that I have investigated I have found that there was some definite reason why it was not possible for the procedural arrangements to be carried out in the ordinary direct manner.
I accept what the Minister says but I am merely raising the specific point about the transfer of British records to this country. I have had on occasion to approach the officers of the Minister's Department, to be told that the request for records had been made to the British Ministry of Social Insurance and that after a week or two reminders had to be sent. I am suggesting that the Minister should take this matter up at top level with the British Government in order to ensure that the process will be expedited.
My latest information is that there has been considerable improvement in recent times but there are still some cases in which delay occurs.