Hanafin seeks 300 extra staff to process claims

The transfer of some 300 staff from the Department of Finance to help with growing social welfare claims, has been requested by Minister for Social and Family Affairs Mary Hanafin.

Some 246 staff have already been transferred from other Government departments to local social welfare offices and inspectorates and “have helped the situation,” Ms Hanafin said this afternoon.

“We have requested the extra staff for over the next year or so to reduce the waiting times for people."

The number of claims processed in local offices in the first three months of 2009 was up 80 per cent on the same period last year from 86,000 to 155,000.

Staff are “working flat out to meet the demands being made of them at this busy time,” Ms Hanafin said.

The minister was speaking at the launch of a customer charter and action plan as well as the department’s revamped website.

The two priorities of the plan were responding to the increased numbers of jobseekers and increasing the use of technology.

Ms Hanafin acknowledged that the increase in live register numbers was causing delays in some areas in processing claims for job seekers benefit.

Three processing units which are devoted to deciding on the backlog of claims for jobseekers benefit and allowance are planned for the coming months. This is in addition to four units recently established.

The department has also undertaken to increase its use of technology to improve productivity.

Visits to the department’s website have almost doubled in the last few years with almost 250,000 people visiting it every month.

An SMS service is among the new tools adapted by the department since the start of the year. It allows the public to request social welfare forms by mobile text message. Forms have also recently been put on the website for downloading.

The department also plans to introduce appointment notices by text and online forms for social welfare by the end of next year.

Fine Gael spokeswoman on social and family affairs Olwyn Enright said the Minister's effort to transfer civil servants to her department to process the claims was "far too late".

She said the most recent figures for waiting times from the Department of Social and Family Affairs were "shocking".

"Newly unemployed people in Boyle in Roscommon currently face a 19-week wait for jobseekers allowance. Their only other State alternative is to seek help from community welfare offices, which are also struggling to cope with demand. Figures for other offices are almost as stark."

Ms Enright said the other waiting times included 15 weeks in Edenderry and 14 weeks in Navan and Loughrea.

There were also waits of 13 weeks in Tuam, Bandon, Gort, and Kells and 12 weeks in Clonakilty.

In Maynooth, Trim, Tullow, Ballyconnell, Kinsale, Castlepollard and Drogheda the wait was 11 weeks and in Cork, Galway, and Baltinglass there was a 10-week wait.

“With almost 390,000 people now on the live register and unemployment at 11.4 per cent, the second highest in the eurozone, we are looking at the prospect of half a million people being on the dole this year. Social welfare staff are already working flat out to deal with soaring claims, but the situation is getting worse by the day."