asked the Minister for Social Welfare the cause of the long delay in general in deciding applications from small farmers' sons for unemployment assistance particularly in respect of farmers' sons who are married and reside outside of the holding and who have no visible means of support and if he will make a statement on the matter.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Assistance for Unemployed Farmers' Sons.
1.
Entitlement to unemployment assistance depends on the means of the applicant and individual investigation must be made in each case by a social welfare officer. The decisions on individual claims are made by deciding officers appointed under the Social Welfare Acts.
The time taken to carry out a means investigation and reach a decision in any particular case depends to a large extent on the individual circumstances of the case. An additional factor is that outdoor staff are heavily burdened by an increasing workload arising from the fact that more people are having recourse to assistance payments.
Every effort is being made, within the available resources, to ensure that claims are processed as quickly and efficiently as possible.
I am not aware of any particular problem in the case of farmers' sons specifically and I can assure the Deputy that applications from claimants in this category are dealt with similarly to all other claims for unemployment assistance.
If the Deputy is aware of any cases which have been the subject of a long delay he should advise the Department of the details so that the cases can be followed up.
Is the Minister aware that there are severe hardship cases relating to applications for unemployment assistance, cases which have been under consideration for at least six months and which relate particularly to the sons of small farmers? Is he aware also that in such cases the smallholders have been asked by officials of the Department to supply statements of income and expenditure in respect of their holdings? What exactly are the Department's policies in regard to these applications?
As I have stated, each case must be investigated in order to establish eligibility for unemployment assistance, entitlement to which is based on a means test. That has been the procedure since the inception of the scheme. While it is not possible to generalise in these cases, I am sure the Deputy can cite instances in which there appear to be long delays, but the vast majority of cases are dealt with relatively quickly having regard to the type of investigations that must be carried out.
Is the Minister aware that the position has become much more serious in the past six months or so and also that it is only within that time that unemployed persons who are married and who have families and who live away from the family farms have been asked to have their parents submit statements of income and expenditure in connection with the applications for unemployment assistance? This is a cause of grave concern to those people who must wait a considerable time before their applications are decided. In many cases action is taken only after parliamentary questions have been tabled about the delays.
The Deputy has asked a question. He should not elaborate on it.
I assure the Deputy that all applications are treated similarly and that all claims are processed as quickly as possible. There is no distinction drawn between applicants for unemployment assistance. The fact that an applicant may be a farmer's son who is living away from the farm does not mean that the time taken to process his claim will be longer than is the case in respect of other applicants for unemployment assistance.
In these types of cases of small farmers' sons who are unemployed and living away from the family holding, would the Minister agree that the investigations would seem to infringe on the privacy and rights of the applicants to the extent that in many cases there is an investigation also into whether these people are employed by their parents? Many of these young men are adults——
Has the Deputy a question?
I am asking whether the Minister agrees that there might be an infringement of the privacy of the applicants to the extent that information may be related to their parents which the applicants would not wish their parents to have?
The relevant section of the Social Welfare Act provides that the yearly value of any advantage accruing from the use of property which is used and enjoyed by the applicant is included in the calculation of means. One can readily visualise cases in which farmers' sons, though living some distance perhaps from their father's farms, would have some beneficial interest in the farms and therefore would be assessable on that basis. Such cases are difficult but the information must be obtained.
We have spent eight minutes on this question and we are expected to deal with 39 questions.
I will be very brief. Would the Minister not agree that in many cases it is blatantly obvious that since the applicants reside away from the family holding they do not have any income from those sources and that it is an infringement on their privacy if, in the process of the investigation of means, their parents are notified of the applications for unemployment assistance? We are talking about men who are married and leading lives of their own.
The position is that where there appears to be a beneficial interest, that interest is taken into consideration. In practically all of those cases in which there appeared to be delays, investigations showed that the delays arose from the non co-operation of the applicants in providing the information necessary to enable a deciding officer to reach a decision.