James Breen
Ceist:496 Mr. J. Breen asked the Minister for Social and Family Affairs the reason the appeals system in the Department is so slow; and the steps she intends to take to improve the system. [5412/03]
Written Answers - Social Welfare Appeals.
Every person who is dissatisfied with a decision on a claim to a social welfare payment or with certain decisions made by health boards in regard to supplementary welfare allowances has a statutory right to appeal. The social welfare appeals system is a quasi-judicial one and the procedures involved are designed to ensure that every appellant's case gets full and fair consideration. While there is an inevitable time lag in such a process, which is governed by statutory and fair procedure requirements, it is designed to enable as quick a resolution of each appeal as possible.
When an appeal is received, the social welfare appeals office refers the case to the deciding officer for his or her comments on the arguments made by the appellant, including any new evidence submitted. As a result of this process over one fifth of such cases are revised in the person's favour by deciding officers, usually because new evidence that warrants such a revision has become available.
Some appeals may be decided summarily by an appeals officer on the basis of the documentation presented to him/her. In other cases the appeals officer may decide that an oral hearing is required before the issue can be decided.
Although the number of appeals increased in recent years, average processing times were broadly maintained over the period at around 22 weeks. This average time is impacted by, in a significant number of cases, issues such as adjourned hearings, usually at the appellant's behest, additional medical examinations and consultants' reports, unavailability of legal representatives for hearings, etc.
A consultancy study has been carried out recently on the appeals process, in order to assist the management of the appeals office in effecting improvements. Additional resources have been deployed to the office and the number of appeals on hand has been reduced from 7,500 at the beginning of 2000 to under 5,900 currently. Further measures are also being put in place to reduce the number of appeals on hands and to shorten the average time taken to determine an appeal.