Vol. 488 No. 4
38 Mr. J. O'Keeffe asked the Minister for Social, Community and Family Affairs his views on whether the social welfare appeals system can be slow in some instances; and whether the appeals office needs to be better resourced to enable it to deal with the volume of work. [6321/98]
The social welfare appeals process is quasi-judicial and the procedures which are applied are designed to ensure that every appeal gets full and adequate consideration. There is an inevitable time lag in such a process. In some cases an additional delay may arise because of difficulty in obtaining all of the information required by the appeals officer.
In some cases appeals can be dealt with on the basis of the information supplied by the appellant and by the deciding officer without recourse to an oral hearing. Where an oral hearing is required, however, an additional delay is inevitable.
The number of appeals received by the social welfare appeals office in 1997 amounted to approximately 14,000, an increase of over 1,800 on 1996. The average time taken to process all of the appeals dealt with during 1997 was 22 weeks.
Four additional appeals officers were appointed during the second half of 1997, bringing the total number of appeals officers to 14. This has brought about an improvement in the processing time for appeals so far this year.
The provision of a prompt service is a major objective of the social welfare appeals office. At all times it is necessary to ensure that progress in this regard is achieved in a manner that is consistent with the demands of justice and the requirement that every appeal be fully investigated and examined on all its merits.
