Vol. 529 No. 1
915 Ms Fitzgerald asked the Minister for Social, Community and Family Affairs the action his Department will take to ensure that vulnerable people, who are isolated and dependent on social welfare, receive essential help and monitoring; the circumstances surrounding the visits by an inspector to a house where four women were subsequently found dead; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [1841/01]
Some 890,000 payments covering nearly 1.5 million people are issued each week by my Department to claimants under a wide variety of schemes. These payments are paid mainly by cheque or payable order and my Department does not have direct contact with the payees on any systematic basis. Many customers initiate contact with the Department for information or in relation to changes in their circumstances. Contact initiated by the Department would be with a view to ensuring that the conditions for entitlement to payment continue to be met or where it was considered that the person might have an entitlement under another scheme, to inform and advise them accordingly.
The close monitoring of claimants on a basis which would allow it to detect rate and isolated incidents is not something which would be possible in the context of a highly dynamic operation, carried out significantly by telephone, correspondence, third parties and in such volumes.
