Vol. 753 No. 1
1Deputy Barry Cowen asked the Minister for Social Protection if she will discuss correspondence sent out in a number of local authority areas over the past two weeks to rent supplement recipients informing them to re-negotiate their rents by a certain date rather than at the renewal of the lease as stated by her; and if she will clarify the issue. [4537/12]
5Deputy Clare Daly asked the Minister for Social Protection the reasoning behind the rates of rent allowance cuts arising from Budget 2011; her views that these cuts will force persons to move and change their children’s school because they will be unable to afford to stay in the areas they currently live in; if a poverty impact assessment has been done to measure the effect of the rent allowance reductions on families already struggling to make ends meet and the effects in terms of increasing the risk of homelessness as a result of the cuts; and in view of the above problems with a reduction in rent allowance, if she will ensure that vacant residential properties held by the National Assets Management Agency would be taken over and used as social housing. [4464/12]
I propose to take Questions Nos. 1 and 5 together.
Rent supplement provides short-term support for eligible persons living in private rented accommodation whose means are insufficient to meet their accommodation costs and who do not have accommodation available to them from any other source. Since 2005, rent supplement expenditure has increased from €369 million to a provisional outturn of €503 million in 2011. The number of persons claiming the allowance went from almost 60,200 in 2005 to more than 96,800 at the end of 2011, an increase of 61%.
As my Department funds approximately 40% of the private rented sector, it is essential that State supports for rents are kept under review, reflect current market conditions and do not distort the market in a way that could increase rent prices for others such as low-paid workers and students. New maximum rent limits came into force on 1 January 2012 which are in line with the most up-to-date market data available. The emphasis of the rent limit review was to ensure maximum value for money for tenants and the taxpayer, while also ensuring persons in receipt of rent supplement are not priced out of the market for private rented accommodation. It is expected that the new limits will achieve €22 million in savings this year.
All new rent supplement applications are subject to these limits. As existing claims come up for review, usually every six months, or when an existing lease expires, they will be reassessed using the new limits. These reviews are being carried out by former community welfare officers who joined my Department on 1 October 2011 and are now departmental officials. Where a claim is under review and the rent is above the new maximum limit, the customer is asked to contact the landlord to renegotiate the rent. Where a landlord does not agree to reduce the rent to the new rates, departmental officials will discuss the options open to the tenant up to and including seeking alternative accommodation. Departmental guidance to the officers administering rent supplement states that where negotiation with the landlord fails, the supplement may continue to be paid for a period of up to 13 weeks at the higher rate. However, once the lease has expired, the tenant will be expected to find suitable accommodation at below the new limits.
The provision of social housing is a matter for my colleague, the Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government, Deputy Phil Hogan. I am advised that his Department has agreed a target of delivering 2,000 units that have been identified by the National Asset Management Agency as potentially suitable for social housing use. The provision of social housing is a matter for my colleague, the Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government, Deputy Hogan. I am advised that Department has agreed to the delivery of 2,000 units which have been identified by NAMA as potentially suitable for social housing use.
It is important this scheme follows rather than leads the market. There is a danger that the word will go out that the Department in subsidising 40% of the private rental market is subsidising landlords rather than tenants. I accept that unlike in times past a small number of landlords, who are owners of a second home rather than part of large operations, are in financial distress. That said, one cannot artificially inflate the market.
As I understand it, the Minister is saying - which seems reasonable - that the new rates come into effect from the review date or date of expiry of a lease and that in the event of failure to reach agreement with a landlord a tenant can involve a community welfare officer, which officers were seconded to the Minister's Department on 1 January last year and became civil servants in October.
It was a joint operation between the two Departments.
When Minister for Social Protection - the Minister may have found traces of this in the Department - I was working with the Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government on standards in rented accommodation, PRTB pre-registration rather than post-registration, BER ratings, building regulations and so on. Has the Minister progressed discussions on those issues? The Department is spending €500 million on rented accommodation, which according to statistics includes some of the coldest accommodation in the country. There is a need for joined up thinking in this regard.
A similar rent review took place in 2009 when Deputy Ó Cuív was Minister. The ultimate effect of that was an overall reduction in rents of approximately 4%, which effected significant savings. It is important to note that there are people at work on low wages who rent and there are students who rent. If the Department, as probably the single biggest individual player in this area, is a force in driving rents upwards landlords will gain and workers will suffer. The same applies in respect of students. It is important Deputies who are concerned note this point. Similar reviews have had the consequence of reducing rents somewhat. Also, reviews provide the Department with important information. My Department spends €500 million on rent supplement, which is a huge amount. It is important those who obtain maximum value from this are tenants whose rent is being assisted.
On Deputy Ó Cuív's question in regard to the PRTB and standards of accommodation, detailed discussions are ongoing between an in interdepartmental committee and the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government in relation ultimately to the latter Department taking responsibility for the administration of rental accommodation. There are currently more than 36,000 people on the RAS scheme. Progress in this regard has been relatively slow. As regards the PRTB, that agency, in consultation with my Department, has created a software solution allowing it to isolate rent supplement tenancies which it considers should be registered with the PRTB but have not yet been registered by landlords. This is supported by information on rent supplement tenancies supplied by my Department on a quarterly basis.
Despite the Minister's statements, there is no evidence to suggest this measure will succeed in reducing rents. This decision is made against the backdrop of many people in receipt of rent allowance already paying in excess of the €30 minimum they are required to pay. They are forced into having to pay over the odds because many landlords will not accept people on rent allowance. Vulnerable people will be the fall guys of what the Minister is doing. I have received correspondence on this issue from many people, including from a heroic mother, Deirdre from Wicklow, who fought tooth and nail to have her disabled son educated in a local school and is now faced with having to move out of that area because her rent allowance limit has been reduced from €850 per month to €625 per month. She will not be able to maintain that unit and is faced with having to either move out of the area or move into substandard accommodation. Meanwhile nothing is being done to release the numerous empty units around the country, many of which are NAMA properties effectively owned by the State, thus ensuring people are not constantly forced to move to different geographic areas.
Deputy Daly stated that a particular woman in Wicklow is paying €850 per month in rent. I do not know where in Wicklow the person lives and cannot, therefore, inform the Deputy of the rent allowance for that area. The Deputy has stated that the woman's rent allowance has been capped at €625 per month. I suggest she take up this matter with the relevant departmental officer. Community welfare officers and staff in my Department are sympathetic and understanding.
It is all very fine for Deputy Daly to suggest I should not be trying to make savings in terms of rent but I want value for the taxpayer and the tenant. Also, I am entitled to take into account the person in work who lives in rented accommodation and is paying that rent out of a small wage and the student or family paying rent when a student goes to college. My Department, in terms of its responsibilities in the administration of a large budget, must ensure it does not distort the rental market by in effect permitting rents which are too high. As I stated earlier, following a similar review by the previous Minister the outcome was a modest but important reduction in rents. Lest the Deputy is not aware of it, rent levels in some areas are very high.
Deputy Daly referred to NAMA. As I stated earlier, the Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government has agreed to take over 2,000 units deemed suitable for social housing. Obviously, the units will have to be in appropriate areas. Some of the surplus units may not be in areas where people in receipt of rent allowance wish to live. If the woman to whom the Deputy referred wishes to write to me or to make contact with her local community welfare officer, I am sure she will be attended to diligently.
There will always be unscrupulous landlords. The Minister will be aware that it is illegal for a landlord to seek a top-up.
Yes.
Has consideration been given to making the penalties for doing so much more stringent, thus strengthening the law in this regard? As for the interdepartmental committee, has the Minister discussed with her officials making a proposal to the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government to the effect that registration of properties to let should be carried out before letting takes place? This would be in contrast to the current situation, in which one lets the property and then registers with the Private Residential Tenancies Board, PRTB, which is when the standards apply. In this way, the Minister could be absolutely sure that all properties that were eligible for rent supplement would be up to standard because of the obligation to pre-register such properties. I was driving that agenda when I was in the Department because it is a case of the horse being behind the cart at present and that should be reversed.
The Minister should reflect on the fact that the victims of this measure will be the tenants. I can state this because the situation has already arisen. I note the Minister quoted back the example of the plight of the lady in Wexford. Although she has been on all the housing websites and has contacted all the estate agents, landlords are not taking up the rental accommodation scheme, RAS, property arrangements because the limits that already exist are below the market rates at present. The Minister's measure will force that person out of the area in which she has fought so long. Were the Labour Party serious about making savings and taking landlords out of the net, a serious approach would be taken to the NAMA properties. The provision of 2,000 such properties in the context of 100,000 people on the waiting list is nothing but scratching the surface and is far too inadequate.
I refer to Deputy Ó Cuív's comments on top-ups, to which Deputy Clare Daly also referred earlier. Essentially, top-ups involve false declarations of what is the rent. Any top-ups such as those to which Deputy Daly referred should be reported to the Department because, in effect, they constitute an abuse of the tenant in which a social welfare income is being paid and a rent contribution then calculated that is proportionate to that income. Consequently, if Deputy Daly has evidence with regard to top-ups, I suggest she should act responsibly and report those top-ups in order that landlords are not being encouraged to exploit tenants.
On the issue of further co-operation between the PRTB and the Department, Deputy Ó Cuív in particular should note it entails furthering the involvement of the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government. Ultimately, it would be preferable to have much more widespread leasing arrangements for a longer time and negotiated at good rates. This would offer a return to the landlord but more importantly would offer value to the taxpayer. While this is what the Department is moving towards, Deputy Ó Cuív is aware that progress in this regard is slow because the local authorities have approximately 88 different differential rent schemes. However, the interdepartmental committee is undertaking an amount of work on aligning different schemes throughout the country and I hope to be able to report further progress in this regard.
2Deputy Aengus Ó Snodaigh asked the Minister for Social Protection the reason she did not conduct a review of community employment schemes prior to her decision to cut the training and materials budgets by two thirds; and if she will reinstate the budgets at 2011 levels. [4539/12]
4Deputy Barry Cowen asked the Minister for Social Protection the source of the funds available to keep community employment schemes open; the resources and funds she will be diverting from her projected 2012 budget to ensure that CE schemes remain operative; if this commitment stands after March when the two reviews she has ordered are complete; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [4538/12]
I propose to take Questions Nos. 2 and 4 together.
Community employment, CE, is a valuable resource in the provision of a range of services to communities. However, it is acknowledged that its effectiveness in terms of labour market progression is somewhat limited. The report, Supports and Services for Unemployed Jobseekers: Challenges and Opportunities in a Time of Recession, published in August 2011 by the National Economic and Social Council, was critical in terms of labour market progression. The report, What Can Active Labour Market Policies Do?, published by the ESRI in November 2011, also noted that previous studies had determined that CE was not associated with increased post-programme employment chances and that previous participation in a CE scheme was associated sometimes with an increased risk of long-term unemployment.
The budget for CE for 2012 is approximately €315 million. The massive increase in unemployment requires that as many places as possible are open to a broader range of jobseekers. The reduction in training and employment grants was implemented in the context of the overarching need to ensure that all Exchequer expenditure is targeted appropriately, which I consider to be a reasonable objective. Moreover, the total number of CE places available and the number of CE supervisors are not affected. At present, there are approximately 1,400 CE supervisors and more than 22,000 CE places.
I have directed that a review of the financial resources of individual schemes be completed by the end of March. The purpose of the review is to examine the income and funding of sponsoring organisations in terms of their ability to continue to deliver the programme. As part of the review, alternative sources of support will be examined, particularly the level of funding from other State agencies. The review also will seek to establish whether income is generated by scheme activity and the potential for utilisation of these funds to cover project costs. The outcome of each review will provide a clear picture of the core funding required for each CE scheme. This will assist my Department in ensuring a fair distribution of the funding available for these schemes.
I have given assurances to community and voluntary organisations that no CE scheme will be forced to close as a result of the reductions in training and material grants, pending the completion of this review at the end of March. This guarantee will be funded by my Department from its 2012 allocation. In parallel, my Department is also undertaking a policy review of all employment support programmes under its aegis. CE is being considered as part of this review and stakeholders will be consulted as part of this review process. I expect to have this review in the first quarter of this year. These reports at both the individual CE scheme level and at the macro level will provide good evidence on which to base future policy. The outcome of the review will form part of the report to the troika.
I again assure the House of my full appreciation of the value of CE schemes locally. The focus now is on achieving improved outcomes both in terms of service provided at local level and job progression for CE participants themselves.
Is the Minister aware the cut of 66%, on which she decided in respect of the CE training and materials grant, will decimate community employment schemes and projects as well as those communities which depend on such schemes? I note the Minister has acknowledged this dependence on many schemes. Does the Minister agree the cut actually was made earlier this month? Notwithstanding her announcement of a review before Christmas that led many of those concerned to believe they had been saved from a cut, does she agree this is not the case? Does the Minister accept she announced the review and misled the public and the CE schemes simply to get her own party's backbenchers off her case?
In the budget, she announced a cut to the community employment programme of €41.5 million and has determined to make a cut of approximately €27.5 million to the training and materials funding. In essence, she already has decided the outcome of the review and the reply she has just given appears to endorse this suggestion. Has she already decided the outcome of the review and its purpose? Does the Minister agree she is conducting a review after the fact and by so doing, she is demonstrating she did not bother to assess the cut's impact when deciding to make it in the first instance? Does she agree that had she sought it, most of the material to which she has referred already is in the possession of the Department and the review could have been carried out without implementing a cut of the scale announced?
There is no shortage of reviews of community employment, of which there have been a great many right up to the time when community employment schemes joined my Department. They came under its aegis on 1 January, or in practice on 4 January, together with approximately 700 staff who previously had worked in the employment services side of FÁS and the administration of community employment schemes. On foot of the community employment schemes coming under the aegis of the Department of Social Protection and given that Department's long commitment to people who are unemployed, I am convinced that when Members again discuss this issue in eight or nine months time, it will be evident how much progress has been made.
Deputy Ó Snodaigh referred to reviews. All of the reviews, both national and international, have been highly critical of the lack of progression for people on CE schemes into employment. It must be remembered that these schemes are described as labour market schemes. Deputies are aware that CE schemes are critically important to many areas throughout the country in the context of the delivery of local services. The first of the two reviews that are under way is considering matters revolving around the financial facts and figures relating to CE schemes. It would be very odd if, on assuming responsibility for these schemes, the Department of Social Protection did not seek an analysis of the very large spend relating to them. This year, we will be spending approximately €315 million on CE schemes. In total, we will be spending over €1 billion in respect of employment support schemes, some of which originated with FÁS and others, such as the back to education allowance scheme, which have always been funded by my Department. We are considering the position with regard to all of these schemes. I am of the view that many Deputies would be extremely disappointed if we did not engage in an investigation of the funding relating to them.
It was on my watch that the decision was made to move the CE schemes and the employment support schemes relating to FÁS within the Department's remit. That was a good decision and, as a result of it, the Minister has been dealt a very good hand of cards because she has responsibility for the CE schemes, the community services programme and various other schemes.
In the context of training, those who are over 55 are allowed to remain on the schemes but I do not see the point in people engaging in training year after year. This is one of the changes I considered when I was in office and it is the reason the Tús programme exists. Basically, the line of progression was seen to be from CE schemes into Tús. It is my opinion that a mistake was made when the money relating to materials was cut. Introducing an across-the-board reduction in respect of training was also a mistake. I put it to the Minister that there are other savings which could have been made. Does she agree that considerable savings could be made by using the Tús model because this would mean there would be no need to have 400 separate companies paying fees to 400 sets of auditors or to have 400 individuals responsible for making up wages each week? The 53 companies operating under the Tús programme have available to them all the support they require and the wages relating to all of them are made up in Clifden, County Galway, each week. Perhaps the wages for the CE schemes could also be made up at this location?
Considerable savings could be made if the type of rational approach I am advocating were adopted. There is always a great deal of discussion with regard to quangos. Effectively, the CE schemes have given rise to the creation of 400 unnecessary quangos. Would it be possible to make further significant savings if, as is the case with Tús, a single insurance policy applied in respect of the CE schemes?
Under the CE structure, there are over 1,000 voluntary companies which are run by voluntary boards. The participation of the latter is really important. The fact that these 1,000 companies are limited by guarantee gives rise to major costs. I have seen some preliminary indications that in many areas the cost of an audit for some of these extremely small entities is between €1,800 and €2,000. That is the amount being charged and these are not even full audits. The insurance costs are also quite high. These are two areas in respect of which savings can be made.
What about my suggestion on wages?
I accept what the Deputy said and I would welcome it if the people in Clifden were prepared to take on more work.
As already intimated, there are substantial savings to be made. During the period of the review - the other purpose of which is to collect data - I want to encourage the CE schemes to co-operate with the former regional and local management of FÁS who are now civil servants working for the Department of Social Protection and supply the data and information that is required. A number of schemes have multiple sources of funding. Some may be in receipt of funding from my Department and the Departments of Children and Youth Affairs and Health, while others may be sponsored by local authorities. There is a need to obtain a reliable picture in respect of the different sources of funding. Some CE schemes - I accept it is not a huge number - have significant income-earning abilities. We want to target the funding at the schemes which are in most need of it. I would appreciate the support of Deputies while the review is ongoing. I urge them to encourage those who operate the schemes to remain in close communication with the officials who have been administering them.
The Minister referred to the reviews, which discovered that there was limited progression. If the level of progression is so low, does she not accept that it is illogical to reduce the training and materials grants? The training grant is particularly important because it is the only hope in the context of ensuring that people are trained. Does she agree that there can be very little progression if there are no jobs? Would the Minister not delay the budget cut pending the outcome of the reviews? As she stated, many similar reviews are sitting on shelves. If some of the recommendations they contain had been implemented or if some of the data already available within the Department had been used, those who operate the CE schemes would not be obliged to go cap in hand to the Department in order to obtain money to allow them to try to survive for the next couple of months. That they are being obliged to approach the Department is going to create another bureaucratic nightmare for it.
Does the Minister agree that, in terms of its administration, Tús is a streamlined version of a CE scheme?
It is a one-year CE scheme.
It was my intention, had I remained in office, that it would not be a one-year scheme. The Department of Finance made a demand in that regard and as the Minister is aware, the Government of which I was a member was running out of time. Tús is very streamlined in its operation and this means that money is freed up for the purpose of providing people with employment.
Does the Minister agree that there are people who will never obtain employment in the open labour market? People have a right to work and to make a contribution. Does the Minister further agree that many services in this country would fall apart if CE schemes did not exist? For some people, progression is not a realistic option. Unlike Deputy Ó Snodaigh, I believe that after a certain time people who have been undergoing training and who are unlikely to emerge from the system want what they are doing to be classed as a job rather than as a training scheme. If I had remained in office, it had been my intention - as is the case with the RSS, in respect of which time limits do not apply - that people who complete their involvement in community employment and who are unlikely to emerge from the system should move to the Tús programme and continue working on it until they obtain alternative employment.
Does the Minister agree that it is heartbreaking for those who are unemployed to be thrown off FÁS schemes, having been on them for four or five years, and removed from the system? Would it not be ideal if everybody who is unemployed had the option to remain on a work scheme on a continuous basis and as long as he or she is available for work when he or she finishes his or her training scheme? Some of the great gurus in the system utter all sorts of nonsense with regard to people seeking work. There are 450,000 people on the live register and we know they would start work tomorrow if they were offered the opportunity.
There are three elements to the reviews. The first relates to identifying the services that are being delivered to communities. Like other Deputies, I recognise the importance of such services. I will not describe those services in detail but I am referring, for example, to meals on wheels, etc., which are extremely important to people in both urban and rural areas. The second element contemplated by the reviews relates to progression. There may be an issue in the context of the description of the schemes, which implies that they will lead directly to employment. As a result of this, our interlocutors from the troika want to examine the position with regard to progression. In respect of certain schemes, opportunities for progression can be limited. The third element is value for money. As stated earlier, there are up to 1,000 voluntary companies and this is a factor.
Deputy Ó Cuív referred to Tús. When I became Minister in March, although the Tús scheme was provided for, there was nobody on it. I spent a lot of time in May and June getting the scheme off the ground. As Deputy Ó Cuív says, the companies that got involved have been very productive. At the end of December, there were around 2,300 people on Tús and over 4,000 people on JobBridge. We have had almost an extra 7,000 opportunities, with more on offer, between those two schemes. It is critical that in the review of the CE, we get more opportunities for more people to have an option. That could be education, training, work on a CE scheme or work with JobBridge.
As Deputy Ó Snodaigh said, the unemployment situation is extremely difficult. So many people want an opportunity. There are many men in their 20s to their 50s who are now coming into long-term unemployment, and huge numbers of them want an opportunity to participate in the scheme. It behoves me as a Minister to create opportunities for people like that who have not so far had an opportunity, and I am determined to do that.
3Deputy Joan Collins asked the Minister for Social Protection her views on the continuous delay in processing applications for social welfare benefits and allowances and in particular the average of six months for processing applicants for carer’s allowance and benefit. [4749/12]
The Department is committed to delivering the best possible service to its customers. Processing times vary across schemes, depending on the differing qualification criteria. At the end of 2011, there were almost 52,000 people in receipt of carer's allowance from my Department at a total cost of almost €500 million. Approximately 22,000 of these were getting half-rate carer's allowance in addition to another social welfare payment.
The average time taken to award a carer's allowance application was 17 weeks in the third quarter to the end of September 2011, and not the six months quoted in this question. Due to the introduction of a new claims processing system for carer's allowance, figures for the last quarter of 2011 are unavailable as new claims are being processed on the new system while older claims are still being processed on the old system. For carer's benefit, the average time to award a claim in 2011 was ten weeks.
In order to meet the challenge of increased volumes of new claims for its schemes, the Department has embarked on a major programme of process redesign and modernisation, including the development and roll-out of new computer systems in the invalidity pension, carer's allowance and disability allowance areas. This roll-out of new systems is a very resource intensive task and consequently has had a negative impact on the claims processing performance for carer's allowance where the project is currently underway. Once the programme of roll-outs is fully completed, I expect that performance will recover and improve. In the meantime the Department is taking all steps available to augment resources in order to process claims.
Additional information not given on the floor of the House.
For example, since May 2008, 900 staff have been assigned to my Department, mainly through the transfer and redeployment of staff from other Departments. In addition, the Department has recruited new medical assessors and appointed additional staff to the Social Welfare Appeals Office. The Department also makes judicious use of overtime and employs temporary staff as appropriate to address particular service issues as they arise.
In order to offer a more streamlined, efficient and integrated service to customers, the Department is also undergoing a process of intensive planning and organisational change in establishing the new National Employment and Entitlements Service. The establishment of the NEES under the management of my Department brings together the community welfare service, the employment services and community employment programmes of FÁS, the rural social scheme and community services programme from the Department of Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht and the redundancy and insolvency schemes from the Department of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation.
It is my intention that the NEES will integrate all employment and benefit support services in a single delivery unit. This new service will provide a coherent integrated and more personalised service to customers and will help minimise the duplication that characterised services which were provided separately in the past.
I hear what the Minister is saying, but our experience in dealing with these claims is as outlined in the question. We are dealing with cases going back to July 2011 for the carer's allowance. It is not good enough that people have wait around that long to get clarification on whether they are entitled to the allowance or not. People have to get credit union loans to keep themselves going, while waiting for the approval or non-approval of the allowance to come through. It is the same for invalidity pensions. A person goes through an application for an invalidity pension and is refused. The review then takes 12 weeks and if that does not succeed there is then a six month wait for an appeal. That totals nearly 18 months for somebody waiting to find out whether or not he or she is entitled to an invalidity pension. That is not good enough.
When will this roll-out happen? The current situation cannot continue and something has to be done.
The Department's document record and information management programme is being rolled out, in tandem with what is called service delivery modernisation. That has been underway for a number of different claims. The scanning of medical documents in the social welfare services office in Longford started in November 2010. At the beginning of September 2011, scanning was extended to include carer's allowance application forms and associated documentation. This is part of a very large modernisation process and is ongoing at the moment. We hope to have large elements of it fully completed in a relatively short period of time. We have allocated extra resources. After I became Minister, I appointed extra appeal officers. Extra work has also been provided for.
The Deputy must understand that the volume of applications has risen very significantly. This scheme has grown very dramatically in terms of the number of applications that have been received, both for the carer's allowance and for the half-rate carer's allowance. We are trying to improve the systems to provide a better service.
I do not accept that. The volumes are up, which means that these people are saving the State huge amounts of money. It is imperative that these are put into place as quickly as possible. Is the Government continuing with the clientelism that we all hated with the last Government, where people had to go to Deputies who had a hotline to get through to a particular area? This Government has promised to move away from the failed politics we have had in recent years.
Since I became Minister, I have asked the staff of the Department to provide a series of information seminars in the AV room for Deputies and Senators and the staff of all political parties about the Department's hotlines for Members. These are not based on party politics. They are for every Member of either House who has been elected, and for their staff. The feedback from Members on the work by the departmental staff is very positive.
The staff are great.
A significant number of applications fails in this and other areas because they are incomplete. The quality of the information that is submitted or the totality of the information submitted is not complete.
It is not getting the-----
Let me continue. As carer's allowance is based on a medical assessment, the information has to satisfy not the clerical staff in the Department but the medical staff who are making the decisions. Once the changes I have spoken about are complete, we will need to look at the quality of the information provided at the initial application date, and I have already had discussions with the medical staff in the Department about this. If that information could be provided, I am sure that the number of preliminary refusals could be cut significantly.
Question No. 4 taken with Question No. 2.
Question No. 5 taken with Question No. 1.
