Claire Kerrane
Ceist:1. Deputy Claire Kerrane asked the Minister for Social Protection if she will provide an update on the processing of additional needs’ payments; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [6031/23]
Amharc ar fhreagraThursday, 9 February 2023
Ceisteanna (1)
Freagraí ó Béal (6 píosaí cainte)
I ask the Minister to provide an update on the processing of additional needs payments. These payments are typically made in emergency situations to people who are struggling financially. It is clear that processing times have reduced and I imagine they have reduced significantly which is welcome and important. Will the Minister please provide an update on processing times at the moment?
I thank the Deputy for raising this matter. The community welfare service is committed to providing a quality service to all citizens, ensuring applications are processed and decisions on entitlement are made as quickly as possible. The purpose of an additional needs payment is to assist with essential once-off expenditure which people could not reasonably be expected to meet out of their weekly income.
In 2022 97,224 additional needs payments were issued at a total value of more than €58 million. The increase in the number of additional needs payments follows an extensive communications campaign designed to increase the awareness of its availability to support people. In recent weeks, the number of additional needs payments issued by the Department has returned to levels seen pre-pandemic. This is likely to be influenced in part by the issuing of eight lump sum payments, designed to assist with the cost of living, totalling more than €1.2 billion.
Additional needs payment applications are varied and often quite complex, reflecting the individual circumstances being experienced. They cover a range of needs from supporting payment of a utility bill which might not be due for a number of weeks; to providing assistance with funeral expenses; to providing immediate support to help a family buy groceries. Where it is clear that a person has an urgent or immediate need, every effort will be made to ensure the claim is processed on the same day. Community welfare officers, CWOs, are experienced and can generally assess when a case is so urgent that it requires an immediate response. Approximately 10% of community welfare payments to customers across the country are made on this basis, which shows how responsive the service is to an urgent customer need. There are no backlogs at present for less urgent claims and work on hand is within the scheme's normal processing levels. Complete applications are finalised within two weeks and less than two weeks' work is currently on hand.
The Minister's update and the two-week processing time are welcome. In September I received a reply to a parliamentary question stating that 95% of applications were taking between five and eight weeks to be processed. I appreciate CWOs are stepping in where they can and where the person in need can access them in the first place, which has become more difficult.
I would argue that few additional needs payments are less urgent as they are payments for an emergency, typically for a one-off need, especially in recent months with the way energy prices and bills have increased. It is important we keep a close eye on the continued processing of additional needs payments, particularly as we are seeing surveys and reports, such as the one issued by Barnardos yesterday, showing growing food poverty which should be a matter of concern for everyone in this House. Clearly, the budget, lump-sum payments and so forth are not enough for many families. We saw that in the survey yesterday. I ask the Minister to keep a close eye on processing. Will she also give an update on putting the payment online?
As we all know, CWOs do everything they can to help people. We absolutely value them and the delivery of this service is a priority for me and for my Department. I want to ensure people can get support when they are in need. That is why we had the major communications campaign to raise awareness of the availability of the additional needs payment. In 2022 97,000 applications were made.
A freephone service is available for people who cannot make it to the office. There are a number of different ways in which people can apply for the payment. They can do so online, as I said, a national freephone contact line is available, they can go the Intreo offices which are open 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. five days a week, and in exceptional circumstances, if people need someone to call to their houses, it can be arranged. The CWO will call out to see them. My Department is working on an online additional needs application process via the mywelfare.ie system. The provision of the additional needs payment online application will ensure that those who wish to access the scheme online, including providing supporting documentation, will be able to do so. It is expected the online option will be up and running by the end of quarter 1. I am aware the Deputy raised this matter with me previously and I have followed up on it.
Last July I suggested that it go online and I welcome that it will. One of the issues the Minister and others have raised, as most Deputies on this side of the House will acknowledge, is that where people make applications and submit supporting documentation that is either not good enough or is needed again, it has delayed their receipt of payments. I acknowledge that. I hope that with the online system, all supporting documentation will have to be uploaded and people will not be able to submit applications until that is done. That is welcome.
It is highly unlikely that everyone on this side of the House who has raised significant issues about accessing CWOs is wrong. I do not think we are. The Minister said she values CWOs. Will she tell us whether she has engaged with them since the rise in additional needs payments? What I and others in opposition are hearing on the ground about accessing them contradicts what the Minister has been saying. Has the Minister engaged with them, given how much she values them? I acknowledge that she does.
We have provided additional staff for the service. There are currently 412 people across all grades in the community welfare service. In light of the increased level of applications and as part of the budget, we have secured agreement for approximately 74 additional staff to be assigned to the community welfare service. Recruitment has commenced for these additional staff and it is anticipated they will be in place in the coming weeks, by the end of quarter 1 of 2023. In the interim, until those staff have been recruited, 30 social welfare inspectors have been temporarily reassigned to the community welfare service to assist with claims-processing since the beginning of November. There are no backlogs at the moment. We have managed to clear them. A lot of work went into it. There was an increase in the number of applications as a result of our extensive promotional campaign telling people this support is available. We have managed to reduce the waiting times significantly and applications are being processed. In cases where there are delays, it is generally because some of the information has not been provided. We give people time to provide the information in a humane way. Sometimes they simply cannot get the information or they do not understand it is required.