Vol. 531 No. 3
65 Mr. Wall asked the Minister for Social, Community and Family Affairs his views on proactive measures which can be undertaken at his Department to ensure that in view of a case (details supplied), there will be better policing of welfare of old and vulnerable people; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [5720/01]
My Department issues some 890,000 payments covering nearly 1.5 million people each week to customers under a wide variety of schemes. Where entitlements have been put into payment, further contact between customers and the Department arises mainly in relation to providing information or dealing with changes in their circumstances. Contact initiated by the Department would be with a view to ensuring the conditions for entitlement to payment continue to be met or where it was considered that the person might have an entitlement under another scheme, to inform and advise them accordingly.
Where it is considered that a customer's needs might be more appropriately addressed by another State agency, the customer is referred to that agency. Where the customer's circumstances appear to warrant it, for example, if he or she is unlikely to or incapable of initiating action, officials will make contact with the relevant agencies on their behalf.
The monitoring of customers on a systematic basis in the interests of averting the sort of tragic events which occurred in the case referred to by the Deputy would be difficult for the Department in the context of the numbers involved. Nor is it clear what practical action could have been taken by other State agencies, which would have averted those very unusual events.
