asked the Minister for Social Welfare the average period of waiting for an appeal to be heard in cases of unemployment assistance applications; and the steps which he proposes to take on the matter.
41.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Unemployment Assistance.
23.
asked the Minister for Social Welfare if his Department have made any special efforts recently to expedite appeals for the factual assessment of smallholders unemployment assistance as the very bad summer adversely affected many smallhoders' incomes and many are now increasingly dependent on the payment of this assistance.
77.
asked the Minister for Social Welfare if he is aware of the undue delay in dealing with unemployment assistance appeals; and if he has any proposal to speed up investigations and decisions on such appeals especially in relation to claims for smallholders assistance.
I propose to take Question Nos. 23, 41 and 77 together.
Detailed statistics are not kept of the average length of time taken to process appeals under the various social welfare schemes. Significant delays can, however occur where an oral hearing is necessary and particularly where further investigations of means by the social welfare officer are looked for before the decision is made. There has been, however, in recent months, a significant reduction in the time taken to deal with all appeals under the unemployment assistance scheme, including appeals from smallholders.
This improvement in processing appeals also applies to cases which are the subject of an oral hearing.
The improvement arises largely as a result of the appointment of two additional appeals officers at the end of last year and the appointment of a number of temporary appeals officers last May to deal with oral hearings of appeals by smallholders. Every effort is being made to process appeals as quickly as possible within the constraints of the staffing and other resources available.
Would the Minister not agree that in general the waiting periods for these appeals to be heard extends from four to six months which is totally unacceptable? Would the Minister inform us if any specific methods were undertaken by his Department this year to help advise smallholders who felt they had been hard done by by social welfare officers in informing them of their rights to appeal?
As I stated in my reply, the Department are making every effort to improve the situation. In his question the Deputy referred to appeals under the new arrangement announced on 12 June last which is that all smallholders who appeal against their means assessment may request oral hearings. These cases are dealt with by four appeals officers who are appointed on a temporary basis to deal mainly with oral hearings and smallholders' appeals. The appointment of the four temporary appeals officers has meant that smallholders' appeals are now dealt with more quickly.
However, it does not follow that reinvestigation of means by social welfare officers — which must take place when an application for a review of means is lodged — has been speeded up because delays can ensue. So while the appeals problem has been tackled there still remains some problem of delays at social welfare officer level because it is only when cases are determined by a deciding officer that a smallholder may appeal his assessment. A feature of the new arrangements for dealing with smallholders' cases and which contribute to a speeding up of the process, is that details of the various items of income and expenses upon which a deciding officer makes his decision are given to the applicant. As already mentioned, when appeals are lodged, the smallholder has an opportunity to put his case in detail to the appeals officer.
While respecting that the additional appeals officers will help, I did ask the Minister if any attempt had been made by his Department to increase public awareness, particularly amongst these smallholders, of their right to appeal? The Minister did not seem to have any specific information that there had been any attempt. Is the Minister aware that his colleague, Deputy Donnellan, Minister of State at the Department of Social Welfare, flooded the west with circulars to all smallholders on the western seaboard whose cases were up for appeal or who had lost their unemployment assistance payments? Is the Minister aware of that, or is he trying to conceal it?
It does not seem to be relevant.
I am not aware of the contents of the circular to which the Deputy refers. If the content is designed to inform claimants and people who appeal of their rights and the procedure, then it is in line with what the Deputy was looking for in the earlier part of his question. He wanted to know about the attempts we were making to inform people of their rights and what they should do. I do not think the Deputy should complain if the Minister of State goes out of his way to do that. A major improvement is the procedure introduced during the year whereby claimants are given details of the exact basis on which assessments are made. This was never done before and it is a big help to claimants if they wish to proceed with an appeal.
I am surprised and amazed that the Minister of State was unaware of what his colleague was doing in the west. He flooded not just his own constituency but all of County Galway, for obvious reasons of political expediency. He also wrote to people in Mayo and other counties.
Has the Deputy a question?
Is the Minister aware of what his colleague was doing?
I am not aware of what he flooded the west with.
I am sure the Minister himself would never try that.