Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 17 January 2019
248. Deputy Pearse Doherty asked the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection if her attention has been drawn to delays in the processing times of working family payment applications; the processing times for the payment; the measures being taken to reduce processing times; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [2080/19]
View answerWorking Family Payment (WFP) is an in-work payment which provides additional income support to employees on low earnings with children. WFP is payable for a 52 week period from award date and a person must reapply at the end of this period to have their payment renewed.
My Department is committed to providing a quality service to all its customers. This includes ensuring that applications are processed and that decisions on entitlement are made in a timely fashion.
The average waiting time for processing new WFP applications is currently 8 weeks.
All possible steps are being taken to improve processing times in this area. All available staff are assigned to claims processing to ensure that new applications are dealt with as quickly as possible. As a consequence of the above measures, it is expected that WFP new application processing times will improve significantly in the coming weeks.
WFP renewal forms are issued to customers 8 weeks before the expiry of the 52 week period and these applications are generally processed within 2 weeks of expiry.
