Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 9 February 2023
13. Deputy Bríd Smith asked the Minister for Social Protection if she will provide details of the total allocation of extra funding to community welfare officers to deal with applicants for additional needs' payments; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [6073/23]
View answerI ask the Minister to provide details of the total allocation of extra funding to community welfare offices to deal with applications for additional needs payments and to make a statement on the matter.
I thank the Deputy for this question. The purpose of an additional needs payment is to assist with essential, once-off expenditure which a person could not reasonably be expected to meet out of their weekly income.
In 2022, over 97,000 additional needs payments were issued at a total value of over €58 million. More than €66 million has been provided for additional needs payments in 2023. However, the budget for this scheme is demand-led and is not subject to an overall cap. There are 412 staff across all grades in the community welfare service, including 323 community welfare officers based locally throughout the country.
In light of the increased level of applications, agreement had been reached for approximately 74 additional staff to be assigned to the community welfare service. Recruitment has commenced for these additional staff through a combination of appointments from Public Appointments Service panels, internal promotions and expressions of interest from existing staff within the Department.
We are on track to have these additional staff in place by the end of the first quarter of this year. In the interim, 30 social welfare inspectors were temporarily reassigned to assist with claims processing. This and other measures undertaken during the past year mean there are no backlogs at present and work on hand is within the schemes normal processing levels.
Completed applications are finalised within two weeks and there is less than two weeks' work on hand currently.
Where it is clear that a person has an urgent or immediate need, every effort is made to ensure that the claim is processed on the same day. Community welfare officers are very experienced and can generally assess when a case is so urgent that it requires an immediate response. Approximately 10% of payments to customers across the country are made on this basis, which shows just how responsive the service is to an urgent customer need.
We are going to run out of time but the Deputy will be able to make this response.
I believe we will be able to say with confidence that it is unlikely that the increase the Minister has allocated for exceptional needs payments is going to cover the demand.
We are increasingly seeing, as the Barnardos report showed yesterday, that people who are earning substantially more - I know the CWOs have discretion - are also running into real difficulty with the energy crisis in particular and mortgage increases.
I will draw attention to one particular cohort, namely, people living with district heating systems. Many of them who have been in touch with me are facing utterly unsustainable bills. There are high energy costs in these systems that are not controlled by the Commission for Regulation of Utilities, CRU. People using such systems do not have the option to move companies the way the rest of us do. I have questioned CRU about this at the Joint Committee on Environment and Climate Action and the lack of protection and options or choices to move mean they face uncontrollable heating bills. Many of them have been turned down by CWOs. I ask the Minister to give these people a favourable view, and instruct the CWOs to cut them a little slack, because of the crises they face and the lack of protections the State offers them.
This is a demand-led scheme, as the Deputy knows. We spent €58 million on it last year. There is a budget for this year and if the scheme requires more money, that is not a problem. We will provide it. The additional needs payment, through the community welfare service, is the State's safety net for people who get into difficulty. I have been in politics for 20 years and have always dealt with the local CWOs. They have always done their best to help people, as has the Deputy. I value the CWOs.
The delivery of this service is a priority for me and my Department. Where people are in need, I want to make sure they get support. That is why we had a major communications campaign to raise awareness of the additional needs payment. In 2022, 97,000 applications were processed. That is up significantly since 2021. The additional needs payment is available to those in financial hardship. People are finding that their ESB bills are increasing. There is another €200 credit. We have already paid out €400 in credit.
Deputy Smith can come back in because nobody is here for the next round. She can take her minute if she wants.
I had a lot more to say but I am under time pressure. I will revisit the question of those living with district heating systems. Many of them are approaching a lot of Deputies. These systems are not regulated by the CRU so they do not fall under any regulation. The utilities can charge what they like. They charge much more than what the Minister and I pay for gas coming into our homes. On top of that, the people affected live mainly in apartment complexes. Many of them are good earners but they are paying bills that are at an incredible rate, with no regulations and no control over the prices. In addition, they do not have the option to shop around. We are constantly being told to shop around and change providers but they do not have that option.
There has to be a set of guidelines for CWOs. I ask that within those guidelines this matter is drawn to their attention and they give it specific attention.
I thank the Deputy. I ask her to give me the details. I am not familiar with district heating systems, to be honest. If she gives me the information, I am happy to have a look at it. I do not know the details. If she gives me-----
I will write to the Minister.
If the Deputy writes to me on that specific issue, I will be happy to follow it up.
