My Department is committed to providing a quality service to all its customers. This includes ensuring that applications are processed and that decisions on entitlement issued expeditiously having regard to the eligibility conditions which apply to the different schemes.
In the Social Welfare Act, 1999, I introduced a number of very significant improvements to the carer's allowance scheme and also introduced the new farm assist scheme which is aimed at providing income support to farm families. In the case of disability allowance provided for the retention of entitlement to the allowance by recipients who enter full-time institutional care or who are hospitalised.
The numbers of people being catered for by these schemes have increased significantly. The numbers in receipt of disability allowance have increased from 34,500 when the scheme transferred to my Department from the health boards in 1996 to approximately 50,000 at present.
With regard to carer's allowance all the improvements to the scheme have been fully implemented and the necessary arrangements have been put in place to process the additional applications resulting from those improvements. There are now 13,853 persons in receipt of carer's allowance compared to 1,234 in the same period in 1998. With regard to farm assist 9,186 applications have been received, and there are currently 6,872 claims in payment.
Applications in respect of all these schemes are being dealt with as expeditiously as possible, having regard to the means and, in some cases, medical eligibility criteria that apply.
Clearly, the addition of a substantial number of new claims affects the time taken to process claims generally, my understanding, however, is that there have not been significant additional delays in the processing of applications for these schemes.
If the Deputy is aware of any specific problems in regard to delays my Department will be happy to discuss the matter with him.