Invalidity Pension Application Numbers

Wednesday, 23 January 2013

Questions (138)

Richard Boyd Barrett

Question:

138. Deputy Richard Boyd Barrett asked the Minister for Social Protection if she will provide details of numbers of persons who applied for invalidity pension; the numbers of those who were refused and those who were granted in 2009, 2010, 2011 and 2012; of those who were refused, the numbers who appealed the decision and the numbers who were successful and unsuccessful in those appeals. [3166/13]

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Written answers

Minister for Social Protection (Deputy Joan Burton)

Table 1

INVALIDITY PENSION CLAIMS
Year	Received	Awarded	Disallowed	Total decided
2009	7475	4580	2933	7513
2010	8774	3445*	3411*	7614
2011	14621	2107#	4697#	12829
2012	11510	6352	11423	17775
A breakdown of Invalidity claims awarded and disallowed is not available from December 2010-June 2011. A dual payments system was in operation from December 2010 until all claims were migrated onto a new computer platform in May 2011.

Table 2

Invalidity Pension Appeals – 2009 -2012

Year	Opening Balance	Appeals Lodged	Revised Deciding Officer Decision(*)	Total Decided by Appeals Office	Appeals Allowed	Appeals Partly Allowed	Appeals Disallowed	Appeals Withdrawn	Closing Balance
2009	310	642	82	403	243	1	136	23	467
2010	467	1,024	185	694	341	6	314	33	612
2011	612	2,285	345	970	408	6	489	67	1,582
2012	1,582	4,765	474	1,517	1,031	4	430	52	4,356

(*) Where a person has received a decision to disallow a payment, it is open to them to ask for a review by a deciding officer. These figures reflect those cases where a disallowed claim was revised on review by a deciding officer prior to determination by an Appeals Officer. Generally these cases arise where a person submits additional information, not already considered, in support of their claim following a decision to disallow.