asked the Minister for Social Welfare if he will outline the progress made in implementing the computerisation and other means necessary to tax short term social welfare benefits on the same basis as other incomes as recommended by the Commission on Taxation.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Computerised Facilities.
12.
Most areas of my Department have computerised facilities but the local officers dealing with unemployment payments operate mainly on a clerical and manual basis. A start has been made on the process of computerising unemployment payments and so far some 30,000 unemployment assistance cases in the Dublin area have been computerised. The computerisation of all local offices will take a number of years to complete because of the size of the task and the decentralised manner in which payments are administered. Unemployment payments are administered through a network of over 120 local offices around the country.
In relation to the other short term payments which have been computerised work is presently underway to modernise and update the computer systems so that they will be more flexible and capable of responding to changes in the schemes that might arise in the future.