Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 9 February 2023
7. Deputy Paul Murphy asked the Minister for Social Protection if she will provide details of the length of time it is taking in different areas to process additional needs payments; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [6087/23]
View answerI will continue where I left off because the question is on the same topic. I will further elaborate the problem. The Minister is saying that community welfare officers, CWOs, are there and people can get appointments. I am telling her that is not the experience that is being relayed to us. That is not happening. In the old days, people could go down to the CWO without any prior notice and queue up to see them. They cannot do that now. We need to go back to face to face.
The community welfare service, CWS, is committed to providing a quality service to all citizens, ensuring applications are processed and decisions on entitlement are made quickly. There are no backlogs at present and work on hand is within the scheme's normal processing levels. Complete applications are finalised within two weeks and there is less than two weeks' work in process.
Exceptional needs payment applications are varied and often complex, reflecting individual circumstances. It is important to note that, where it is clear a person has an urgent or immediate need, every effort is made to ensure the claim is processed on the same day. CWOs are very experienced and can generally assess when a case is so urgent that it requires an immediate response. Approximately 10% of CWS payments to customers are made on this basis, which shows how responsive the service is to urgent customer need.
I will elaborate on a further example. I mentioned the man with early-onset Alzheimer's, who is also in a housing assistance payment, HAP, arrangement where he had to pay a top-up. Before getting Alzheimer's, he was working and could make the top-up. Since he got Alzheimer's, he cannot work or make the top-up and is falling into arrears. No appointment was possible.
With our assistance, eventually an application with all the bits and bobs goes in and a cheque arrives for €600, but the arrears, which are not the fault of the people but of their complex circumstances, are €1,000. Their problem is not solved. They needed to talk to an individual to explain their circumstances. I do not blame the CWOs because clearly they are overrun. We need staffing levels in the service that allow people to go to the CWO and explain complicated circumstances and get responses which acknowledge the complexity, difficulty and, often, desperation of the situation they are in.
The CWOs, as we all know, deal with people in a humane and responsive way. There are a number of ways in which people can make applications. They can call into any social welfare or Intreo office. They can pick up the phone and ring us. They can apply online or, where they need it, they can even arrange for a member of staff to meet them in their home. There are many options available to people.
The case the Deputy referred to is complex, but if a person rings up and asks for an appointment to see a community welfare officer, the officer will go to that person’s house. That is the arrangement. I am happy to take the details and look into the case to find all of the information. I will come back to the Deputy as to why the arrears of €1,000 were not given. I cannot say why they did not get it but am happy to look it up and find out exactly what happened.
I will certainly do that. The other case I mentioned is also complex. I will not go over the details again but, just to be clear, it concerns a woman with cancer whose husband cannot turn down the heat and so has big bills. Because she is on illness benefit, she is not entitled to fuel allowance and, therefore, got none of the extra payments for that allowance. This is terrible stuff.
The husband of that woman has been in my office about six or seven times saying he cannot get a face-to-face meeting with the CWO. I am not criticising the CWO because I am sure that CWO is overrun. The Minister is right they are humane people but the problem is, once upon a time it was possible to meet the humane person. Now there are loads of barriers to getting meetings. What the Minister describes is not what it used to be. It has changed and it is not a good change. When it was possible to queue up and see the CWO on the day, it was better than what we have now.
We have increased staff numbers. There are 74 additional staff to be assigned to the community welfare service. In the interim, we assigned 30 social welfare inspectors to the service to make sure claims were dealt with speedily. There is no backlog and we are down to two weeks. That is fair.
Though online applications do not apply to the case the Deputy spoke about, I was pleased to see when my officials went through the statistics that there were as many people over 65 years old using the online service as there were 18- to 24-year-olds. It goes to show more and more senior citizens are going digital like the rest of us. There are options: go online, pick up the phone, call into the social welfare office, or, if needed, a member of staff will go out to the applicant.
