Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 14 November 2023
310. Deputy Mairéad Farrell asked the Minister for Social Protection if her attention has been drawn to the backlog of claims for disability allowance; if her Department is allocating any additional resources to deal with this backlog; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [49877/23]
View answerMy Department is committed to providing a quality service to all its customers. This includes ensuring that Disability Allowance (DA) applications are processed and that decisions on entitlement are made as quickly as possible.
DA has a number of complex qualifying conditions and can take longer to process. Before a decision can be made on an entitlement to DA, evidence must be provided in respect of the person’s medical condition, the extent to which it restricts them from taking up employment, their means and their habitual residency.
The target processing time for the DA scheme is to award 75% of applications within 10 weeks. ?Currently the average waiting time to award for new DA applications is 10 weeks and the average for the year to date is 10 weeks. My Department understands the many pressures faced by people and always seeks to ensure that claims and requests on existing payments are processed quickly and efficiently.
I wish to reassure the Deputy that claim processing is kept under active review, with all possible steps taken to improve processing times.? This includes the assignment of additional resources, where available, and the review of business processes, to ensure the efficient processing of applications.
I hope this clarifies the matter for the Deputy.
