Dáil Éireann Debate, Wednesday - 5 October 2022
228. Deputy Willie O'Dea asked the Minister for Social Protection if her attention has been drawn to the fact that her Department currently has a backlog of over 80,000 applications for exceptional needs’ payments, which is contradictory to the notion of financially assisting a person with an urgent exceptional need; her plans to deal with this significant backlog; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [48826/22]
Amharc ar fhreagraMy Department's Additional Needs Payment is available to support people when they face essential expenses that they are unable to meet from their income regardless of their employment situation or hours of work and each case is assessed on its merits taking account of the person’s income and expenses.
So far this year to the end of September 2022 66,000 Additional Needs Payments have been processed and paid.
13,900 applications for Additional Needs Payments are currently being processed. In the region of 63% of applications for Additional Needs Payments are finalised within 4 weeks. Where an application is not finalised within this timeframe, this is generally due to additional information/ documentation being requested from the claimant to support their application. Where it is evident that a person is experiencing particular hardship and their application is complete and accompanied by the required documentation, their application is prioritised.
The Community Welfare Service (CWS) is committed to providing a quality service to all citizens, ensuring that applications are processed and that decisions on entitlement are made as quickly as possible. My Department is continuing to work to improve the service and is introducing innovations to increase efficiency in processing applications for SWA payments and minimise decision wait times.
I trust this clarifies the matter.
