Holly Cairns
Question:290. Deputy Holly Cairns asked the Minister for Social Protection the steps she is taking to address delayed processing of carer’s allowance applications. [15747/22]
View answerThursday, 24 March 2022
Questions (290)
Written answers
My Department is committed to providing a quality service to all its customers, ensuring that applications are processed and that decisions on entitlement are made as quickly as possible.
There are no delays in processing claims once all of the necessary information is provided to establish entitlement to Carer's Allowance. The average number of weeks to award new Carer's Allowance applications has remained on average at 4 weeks since September 2020.
Significant improvements have been achieved in reducing the average time to process claims over the last few years. In 2021 the average number of weeks to award a new Carer's Allowance claim was 4 weeks, compared to 7 weeks in 2020 and 14 weeks in 2019.
I hope this clarifies the position for the Deputy.