Some people who are not getting a social welfare payment to which they are entitled, due to delays in the appeals system, are at risk of “destitution”, a report has suggested.
Legal rights group Flac (Free Legal Advice Centres) today published a report recommending major reforms of the way in which social welfare appeals are handled. These would include placing the welfare appeals office on a statutory footing.
The report expressed concern about a number of issues, including lengthy appeals in the decision-making process, as well as a "perceived" lack of independence on the part of the social welfare appeals office. That office is a quasi-judicial tribunal established to decide on appeals against refusals of social welfare applications.
Until 2007, it dealt with about 20,000 appeals annually, according to Flac. Last year the number of appeals received was more than double the 2007 total.
Flac director general Noeline Blackwell said the appeals office had 51,515 live or on-going appeals last year, with an average processing time of 32 weeks.
She said anyone who had anything to do with dealing with social welfare appeals would agree it was one of the most “complex, complicated” areas of law.
“The trouble is, that it’s not an optional extra for most people who have to get a social welfare payment. It’s something that they absolutely need in order to live a life of basic dignity.”
In 2011, 42 per cent of decisions appealed were overturned. Almost one in five were overturned just by getting an appeals officer to ask the original deciding officer to revise his or her own decision.
Flac said this high success rate of appeals showed that many original decisions to refuse a payment were wrong in the first place.
The appeals process was a “labyrinth of mechanisms” that was sometimes confusing and hard to navigate. Advocates interviewed for the report recommended more supports for appellants, in terms of both information and representation.
Launching the report, Ombudsman Emily O’Reilly said she was particularly concerned with some of the issues raised.
The report highlighted the fact that many people made their appeals without the benefit of seeing the department’s file on their case and without knowing the details of the elements used by the department in refusing their claim.
“That simply should not happen in a fair appeals process,” she said.
She said she knew some people used the Freedom of Information Act to access their files but this “should absolutely not be necessary”.
Complaints about the Department of Social Protection, including cases where payments are refused, made up 1,135 complaints made to the Ombudsman in 2011, or 31.5 per cent of all complaints that year.
Chief appeals officer with the welfare appeals office, Geraldine Gleeson, said “significant progress” had been made in recent times in dealing with delays due to changes in how appeals were processed, and through the appointment of 15 new appeals officers.
She said last year the waiting time for an oral hearing had reached a high of 52.5 months but that in every month of this year since the new procedures were put in place it had been between 38 and 40 weeks.
Ms Gleeson noted the criticism of the backlog in recent years but she said it wasn’t at all clear that any other tribunal could have dealt with “the tsunami of claims” any better than her office had done.
Fianna Fáil spokesman on social inequality Willie O’Dea said the figures for those waiting to have their appeals heard were “astonishing”.
There were 4,169 people nationwide waiting to have their appeal heard for disability allowance, 2,513 of these had been waiting for more than four months, and 321 people were waiting for more than a year.
In addition to this there were 1,635 people waiting to have their appeals for the Carer’s Allowance processed, with more than 900 of these waiting for over four months and 113 people waiting for over a year.
Mr O’Dea said he supported the Flac report’s suggestion that the appeals office be placed on a statutorily independent footing to ensure independence from the Department.
He said he could not understand why the appeals process was “shrouded in such secrecy” and said families should be afforded the courtesy to have their appeals heard through an oral hearing “as a basic right”.