Senator Durcan has said that he wants to give some time to Senator Higgins. Whatever time you have left out of your own time you can give it to Senator Higgins.
Adjournment Matter. - Unemployment Assistance Applications.
I raise this matter tonight because of a tremendous sense of frustration which I feel and which I think is shared by public representatives throughout the counties of Connacht. That frustration has been developed because of what we see as a type of administrative constipation in dealing with applications for unemployment assistance by small farmers and appeals lodged by people who have suffered a reduction or a complete removal of the assistance which heretofore they were receiving.
In raising this matter I am not raising the issue of notional assessment versus factual assessment of small farmers in determining their entitlement to employment assistance. That question has been settled by the High Court, confirmed by the Supreme Court, following an action instituted by Wexford farmers, supported by the Irish Farmers' Association, to challenge the constitutionality of the PLV system for rating purposes. What I am raising is the administration of the factual system by the Department of Social Welfare. Some months ago I had the pleasure, with certain Deputies and Senators from the affected areas, of attending a meeting with the Minister of State, his colleague, Deputy John Donnellan, Minister of State at the Department of Social Welfare, and senior officials of their Department when we discussed this problem. We had a lengthy and stormy meeting but I would also say, for the record, a fruitful meeting, because following that meeting the Minister made certain promises to us with regard to changes in the administration of that system.
We were promised, firstly, advance notice in all cases of visits by social welfare officers to give applicants the opportunity of getting their affairs in order, to give them the opportunity of detailing items of income and items of expenditure. Secondly, we were promised that applicants would be informed of the total gross income on which assessment was based and the total amount of expenses incurred in earning that income and allowable for assessment purposes. Thirdly, we were told that applicants who appealed against assessment would be made aware of specific items on which the assessment of means was made.
Applicants are now receiving the advance notice and that is an advance for which the two Ministers of State, Deputy Pattison and Deputy Donnellan, must be thanked and congratulated. It is a very substantial advance; an advance from the sudden call, the hard knock on the door when somebody would be caught unawares and would be forced to give details which he could not be expected to get at a moment's notice.
Applicants who appeal find that different social welfare officers use different yardsticks in determining the costings of specific items of expenditure. The best two examples I can cite are of motoring expenses and the cost of replacement stock. On the question of motoring expenses used for agricultural purposes, what is the yardstick in determining the cost of an average car to an average farmer in rural Ireland for a particular year? Are social welfare officers taking into account items such as petrol, tax, insurance, servicing and matters of that nature? The information I have would suggest that they do not. That is one item of expenditure which is not being included at the moment.
The other difficulty which is causing tremendous frustration, which is now reaching boiling point in rural Ireland, is the question of the delay in processing appeals. One can only think that officialdom in many cases is defeating justice and many people have lost hope and faith in a system which is limitless. Furthermore, the manner in which appeals are determined is that files go from office to office, travel from the west coast to the east coast and while an appeal is in progress people can get very little information. I would urge the Minister to implement a uniform code of procedure for dealing with all applications, to publicise that code of procedure and to ensure that no reduction or disallowance of payments is made until the reassessment and appeal are determined to ensure that the entire system is speeded up.
When I say a uniform procedure, I think the staff who carry out initial investigations should be retrained. Factual assessment is totally different from notional assessment. I do not think the people who are carrying out factual assessments under the new system are properly trained in the job they have to do. Certainly I am not satisfied in my area when I see people coming to me from every area of Mayo west — I mention one place in particular, Louisburgh — where there are little girls coming out with the local taxi driver going to specific houses to do checks. I agree that people have to travel but certainly that does nothing to sell the system or to make the system acceptable to the people it is meant to serve. This is a system that is meant to serve people. The operation of the system should be properly publicised. It is time that Department jumped into the eighties and took a leaf out of the book of bodies like An Post and Bord Telecom Éireann and saw how they publicise the services which they are operating. It is important that by publicity, and in a way that can be got across nicely, the Department should explain the current procedures to the people whom this system is meant to serve.
I would urge the Minister to ensure that as a right every applicant is given an answer to his application within a specified period, indicating how his factual assessment is being carried out, indicating the income accepted and the expenditure accepted. Failure to do this will lead to many unnecessary appeals. Promises were given in this regard but I have not seen any evidence that this has been brought into action as yet. It is difficult to expect people not to appeal when they do not know how their application was determined in the first instance. Until this is done there can be no faith in the system.
The entire appeals system should be opened up. The question must be asked whether it is right that appeals in this area should be determined by officials of the Department of Social Welfare. Appeals are being determined by people who belong to the same body of the Civil Service as those who initially carried out investigations, and for many people having to face the social welfare appeal is a bit like going to law with the devil and the court being in hell. That is the way many people in rural Ireland look on it. I do not say that by way of criticism of the officials of the Department, but that is the system that exists and the one that people have to suffer under.
I think it is wrong and indeed I do not think it is constitutional to deprive somebody of payment before an appeal has been determined. It is wrong that somebody overnight can lose his entitlement. A family can be deprived of a substantial portion of their income overnight without an appeal even having been filed let alone determined. A small farm may lose a very important supplement overnight without an appeal being determined, and whereas ultimately if the recipient is proved right he will receive back-payment he nevertheless has to wait a considerable period without any payment whatsoever. The operation of this system should be reviewed to ensure that no reductions are made until an appeal has been finally determined. A stay of execution should be placed on the operation of the system until final determination.
The current difficulties being experienced may be due to staffing within the Minister's Department. It is no answer for any Minister to come into this House and say that there are delays because there are not sufficient staff. I call upon the Minister of State and his colleague the Minister to ensure that staff are made available to deal expeditiously with these appeals. If staff are not made available then the people of this country will rapidly lose faith in the operation of this system, and they will also lose faith politically in those of us who support the Government who at the moment are politically directing the system. Staff should be redeployed immediately to ensure that this system is seen by the people it serves to operate properly.
I raise the matter because of my awareness of the many cases where appeals have been filed and nothing has happened. Today I have given to the Minister's colleague, Deputy Donnellan, a list of eight appeals filed in recent months and I have given a copy of that list to officials of his Department, and I would like to see something happening on those specific cases. Those applicants have already lost hope and faith in the system. I want to maintain some hope in it, and I hope the Minister can give us an assurance that the officials of his Department will be taking steps to allow this system to move more rapidly.
I would like to support Senator Durcan in his contention that there are undue delays in the processing of social welfare applications for unemployment assistance, that is small farmers' dole. I had hoped that it would not be necessary and that the new streamlining and new regulations and criteria introduced would have had the desired effect and would in fact have relieved the log jam that is now clogging, stifling and strangulating the system. If the gentlemen in the Department of Social Welfare who make the decisions at deciding officer level, at appeals officer level or indeed on the ground, were asked to take a cut in salary of £30, £40 or £50 per week I can imagine the natural recoil in anger with which such a proposal would be greeted. This is what has happened throughout the length and breadth of the western counties. Time and time again small farmers, dole recipients, have been slashed and cut and in some cases wrongly cut in their social welfare assessments. I would again make the point that we have made repeatedly, and we made it on the occasion of the introduction of the Social Welfare Bill to this House, that we hold absolutely no brief whatever for anybody who is not entitled to get such benefit. We certainly hold briefs for the hundreds of people who have been unjustly disallowed this form of benefit.
I can point to corners of County Mayo where people were allegedly factually assessed, where the social welfare entitlement was withdrawn, where we assisted them with their appeals and where benefit was restored. Surely the fact that somebody has gone from £35 to zero and back to £35 again underlines the fact that these people were wrongly assessed in the first place and that the final line in the criteria of instructions laid down for social welfare officers, and that is that their function and purpose is to assist and to advise social welfare applicants, is not being and has not been applied in either the letter or the spirit. I am not pointing the finger at every social welfare officer but I am pointing the finger at some, and I can back up my contentions with statistics. Naturally there are going to be delays in the system.
When a new system and a more cumbersome one is introduced it stands to reason that it is going to take more time and it stands to reason that the additional staff which are asked for by Senator Durcan must be provided if we are not going to have such undue delays. It stands to reason that you will have delays in the system of appeals when a deadline is set for the assessment of 13,000 small farmers. Again naturally enough when we have inaccurate assessments or assessments which are carried out without the evidence for same being produced to the recipient or the applicant it stands to reason that people are going to appeal and the more people who appeal the more the system is clogged and stifled. I know the Department will say that if an appeal is justified and if it is allowed this, in effect, constitutes what happens in the courts of the land.
I support the contention of Senator Durcan that these people should be permitted to retain the benefit until such time as the final court of appeal, and that is the decision of the appeals officer, arrives in the front door. The key to this is the word "factual". If somebody has been factually assessed there should be no fear whatever on the part of the social welfare authorities of the production of the evidence to sustain the contention that they are not entitled to benefit. If something has been done factually, all the items in relation to gross income on the one hand and expenses on the other hand, if these have been carried out in accordance with specific regulations laid down by the Minister, then there should be no fear on anybody's part of the production of such evidence, and indeed I would say that it would greatly facilitate in reducing possibly the number of appeals which are disallowed on good grounds because the people would be deterred from appealing in the first place.
I also back up the contention of Senator Durcan in relation to the fact that many of the social welfare officers carrying out these assessments do not know the mechanics of farming and are not au fait with farming situations. They come from non-farming backgrounds and have not the training to deal adequately or competently with the gymnastics of a farm accounts system, and indeed they do not understand the components that go to make up the everyday running of a farm. It is vital that all the expenses necessarily incurred in the running of a farm are taken into consideration. It is vital that these must be sought by the social welfare officer if through ignorance on the part of the farmer he is incapable of articulating them. It is vital that the hardship that is being caused to the people in the west of Ireland at present by the withdrawing of £l.4 million in terms of this form of benefit must be relieved. We made great play on the Social Welfare Bill of the introduction of the family income supplement. This is a family income supplement. It is a farm income supplement. The statistics are there from independent bodies and agencies to prove conclusively that with the level of subsistence farming in the west there is need for this form of benefit.
Again I make the point that any social welfare officer, and civil servant, any politician, who was asked to take a freeze in salary let alone a cut would naturally recoil in anger and in anguish. This is what has happened across the board. I commend the Minister of State and his colleague, Deputy Donnellan, for introducing the new streamlined system, the new regulations, the new criteria. Unfortunately they are not being adhered to and things have not, in fact, reached the stage of perfection that we would like. The late Ernest Blythe went down in history as the person who removed the shilling from the old age pensioner. Minister, I ask you not to write your name into the annals of the history of this House and the history of Ministers and Ministers of State for Social Welfare by compounding another wrong.
The problem of delays in dealing with applications and appeals under the various social welfare schemes has been and continues to be a matter of serious concern. I would like to assure the House that I am very conscious and very concerned that there are delays and, in many cases, long delays in having claims dealt with. This is apart altogether from these delays which can occur in dealing with correspondence and queries of various kinds. There would be no point in my denying that difficulties exist, and it is only by recognising these difficulties that action can then be taken to deal with them.
As far as the unemployment assistance scheme is concerned the problems are particularly acute. Senators will appreciate that the very rapid increase in the live register in recent years has resulted in a massive increase in the workload on the employment exchanges, outdoor inspection staff and the headquarters sections involved in administering the scheme. The embargo on the filling of vacancies in the public service has been felt acutely here. In a period of recession the workload in the Department of Social Welfare increases. It has not been possible to allocate the necessary additional staff, even though some additional staff have been allocated to that area, but certainly not the number required to deal with applications for unemployment assistance and to deal with them as quickly as I would like them to be dealt with. This situation inevitably gives rise to delays. The way in which the unemployment assistance scheme is administered is also under review and procedures are being simplified.
The devolving of decision-making from headquarters to local offices to the greatest extent possible will help to get cases dealt with more quickly. This process, however, means additional work for the local offices and it is not something which can be implemented overnight. The present system involves a considerable amount of movement of papers between the various offices, particularly where local branch offices are involved, and the priority is to reduce this movement to the minimum consistent with the employment exchange being able to exercise control on claims being dealt with and to control them efficiently and to be in a position to know the up-to-date position with regard to a claim at any particular time. In the long-term the computerisation of the unemployment payment scheme will offer significant possibilities in this area, but this prospect is some time in the future.
In so far as small holders are concerned, the requirement, arising from the High Court decision, in relation to the PLV system to review the circumstances of all smallholders who had been on the notional system of means assessment and to transfer them to a factual system has greatly increased the workload on the unemployment branch. The process of re-investigations started in May 1983 and to date over 9,000 small holders have had their cases reviewed. The review involves in each case an investigation by a social welfare officer who must take account of all items of farm income and expenses and on the basis of whose report the decision on entitlement in any particular case is based.
The system of assessing means of small holders for unemployment assistance purposes has been the subject of a great deal of comment and criticism over the past 12 months. A number of changes have been introduced in the administration of the scheme. Arrangements have been made for claimants to be notified in advance of the visit by the social welfare officer. In the advance notification details are given of the items of income and expenses which can be taken into account in the assessment as well as the documentation which the social welfare officer will require. The more detail which the applicant can supply to the social welfare officer the better. Under the legislation it is the deciding officer who makes the decision on entitlement to assistance.
I would hope that many of the queries which applicants may have about particular items of income or expenditure can be sorted out at the initial investigation stage in discussion with the social welfare officer. I cannot stress this point too strongly, because if all the queries were cleared up at that stage it would relieve the burden on subsequent inquiries and appeals where the biggest time lapse happens. The time lapse between the initial decision given in the case of a small holder applicant is not, however, the main concern in so far as they continue to receive payment of unemployment assistance at the rates appropriate to their means, notionally assessed, until the decision on the basis of factual means assessment is given.
It is at the appeals stage that the main problem arises. It is here that I hope the new arrangements, recently introduced, will help the situation significantly by enabling queries to be dealt with at an earlier stage and thereby reducing the number of cases actually going to appeal. It is open to any person who is dissatisfied with a decision of the deciding officer to appeal against that decision and have his case referred to an appeals officer. The Senators made a plea for assistance to continue, pending the outcome of an appeal. Under the legislation it is the deciding officer who has the legal authority. It is not possible to continue payment. I agree that it can cause hardship in certain cases. There would be the problem, if we were to do what Senator Durcan and Senator Higgins have asked for, that some people would inevitably be in a position of having to refund money when their appeal was disallowed. Of course, it might also have the other effect of encouraging everyone to appeal because by appealing they would know they could continue on a higher rate. That might not be a good thing either because it would clog up further the appeals system. It is the deciding officer, under the legislation, who has that power.
The appeals branch of the Department has also been seriously affected by the increase in the number of claims in recent years, particularly on the unemployment payments side. There has been an unavoidable lengthening of the time involved in dealing with cases. Within the constraints which exist every effort is made and will continue to be made to ensure that the delays are kept to a minimum. The arrangement for advance notification of means investigation and the fact that smallholders will in future be informed of the actual gross income and expenses with which they have been assessed should reduce the pressure at the appeal stage. In many cases hitherto when an appeal has been made it is necessary, arising from the contentions made by the appellant, to have a second re-investigation of the means carried out. This causes additional delay. In fact the papers may have to be referred a number of times to the social welfare officer for further information on particular items. No two cases are the same, and generally speaking the only way in which the situation can be fully examined is by an investigation on the spot. Appeals officers are independent deciding authorities and will only decide a case when they are satisfied that they are aware of the full facts. Reference has been made to delays occurring before the papers are actually referred to the appeals officer. Where there is an apparent discrepancy in the information supplied by the appellant and the report of the social welfare officer the case would be referred back to the social welfare officer for further clarification.
To conclude, I can only say that every effort is being made and will continue to be made to deal with cases as quickly and as efficiently as possible. It is becoming increasingly difficult to maintain a reasonable standard of service within the confines of existing resources. The Department is seeking the provision of additional staff and is introducing administrative measures designed to speed up the process as far as possible. The additional workload arising from the reinvestigations of the means of smallholders has posed particular difficulties over the past year. When this process of reinvestigation and review has been completed the situation should be an improvement in the level of service overall. I would hope that the measures recently taken will be recognised as a genuine attempt to meet the criticisms levelled at the scheme and to improve its administration in particularly difficult circumstances with limited resources and trying to work within the confines of the embargo in the public service.
The Seanad adjourned at 8.30 p.m. until 10.30 a.m. on Thursday, 28 June 1984.