asked the Minister for Social Welfare if he has any plan to speed up the hearing of appeals in County Donegal; the number of cases on appeal; the number of appeal officers dealing with claims in the country; and the current time factor involved from the time an appeal is lodged until a final decision is given.
Written Answers. - Processing of Social Welfare Appeals.
139.
The processing of appeal cases is not administered on a county basis. In the normal course formal submissions of appeals are made to the chief appeals officer who makes the necessary arrangements and determines the number of appeals officers to be assigned to deal with the appeal hearings in the particular areas involved.
Some 17,500 appeal cases are received yearly and the time factor varies in accordance with the nature of the decision under appeal and whether or not the case is dealt with summarily or is the subject of an oral hearing. It is accordingly not possible to furnish the information required in the absence of statistics compiled on a county basis. There has been a considerable increase in the number of appeals in recent years which has led to a deterioration in the times taken to process certain appeals. It is relevant to note, however, that two additional appeals officers were appointed at the end of 1984 to help deal with the increased workload and that in mid-1985 a number of temporary appeals officers were appointed with a view to affording oral hearings to smallholders who apply to have their appeals heard orally.