Every person who is dissatisfied with a decision or a claim to a social welfare payment made by a deciding officer of my Department or with certain decisions made by health boards in regard to supplementary welfare allowance has a statutory right of appeal. If an appeals officer considers that an oral hearing is required to determine the question at issue he or she will arrange for the case to be listed for hearing. At present approximately 60% of all cases coming before appeals officers are referred for oral hearing. The policy of the appeals office is to hold hearings at venues as convenient as possible for the appellant. In the Dublin area appeals are heard at the appeals office headquarters. The rest of the country is divided into seven circuits as follows: Cork, Galway, Mayo, north-east, north-west, south-east and south-west.
In any given week there will normally be five appeals officers on circuit outside Dublin. The areas selected for hearings are based on the number of appeals on hand and the length of time cases are on hand. A small number of cases are given priority where exceptional circumstances arise.
I regret the figures sought by the Deputy of the length of time on a county basis it takes to have an appeal heard are not available. There is, however, a table following this reply showing the number of cases awaiting appeals. Those who are waiting longest can expect to be scheduled for hearing when an appeals officer is next in the area. However, some cases may not be in a position to proceed because, for example, the proposed date does not suit the appellant or their representatives. In general, however, efforts are made to deal with as many hearings as possible when an appeals officer is in an area.
A national list system from which hearings would be granted in strict chronological order, while it might appear equitable, would be unworkable in practice. The present system has advantages in terms of efficiency and accessibility which would be lost if the age of the appeal was to be the sole criterion for determining when a hearing should take place.
During the three year period to 2000, the number of appeals received increased by over 25%. However, average processing times were broadly maintained at around 22 weeks. My objective is to achieve an improvement in this. A consultancy study of the appeals office, which included an examination of all the processes involved in dealing with claims to the appeals stage has recently been concluded. The report is being considered with a view to implementing improvements to the system generally.
Circuit
|
Cases awaiting oral hearing
|
Dublin
|
176
|
Cork
|
198
|
Galway
|
116
|
Mayo
|
155
|
North East
|
78
|
North West
|
97
|
South East
|
177
|
South West
|
196
|