WAITING TIMES of up to 22 weeks for jobseekers’ benefit in some parts of the country were described as unacceptable by Minister for Social and Family Affairs Mary Hanafin last night.
“I want to assure the public that everything is being done to reduce them,” the Minister said in a statement last night.
She acknowledged that there were “unacceptably lengthy delays”, in some offices around the country.
Earlier this week, it emerged that claimants in Edenderry, Co Offaly, were waiting 22 weeks for their jobseekers’ allowance applications to be processed.
In Ballinrobe, Co Mayo, Loughrea, Co Galway, and in Castlepollard, Co Westmeath, claimants were waiting 18 weeks.
Ms Hanafin has allocated an additional inspector to deal with claims from Edenderry.
However, she said that an outstanding issue with the CPSU (Civil, Public and Services Union) was “affecting the processing of claims taken in branch offices around the country”.
The parties will shortly enter arbitration on allowing some claim decisions to be made by branch offices which are run by private contractors.
Currently these branch offices, such as the one in Edenderry, forward claims to social welfare offices staffed by civil servants for a decision.
Ms Hanafin claimed that this was agreed with the CPSU in 2008 but the union subsequently refused to implement it.
However, the CPSU said that no such agreement had been made and that is why it was going to arbitration. Derek Mullen of the CPSU denied that members of the union were to blame for the backlog in Edenderry and other parts of the country.
The backlog was an issue of resources and increase in volume and would not be resolved even if the private branch offices could make decisions, he said.
The union said its members are empathetic to the predicament that people face and go over and beyond to deliver a service.
Fine Gael TD for Laois/Offaly Charlie Flanagan called on management and unions to resolve their difficulties in Edenderry.
“Losing a job is traumatic in itself but to be deprived of jobseeker’s allowance to help put bread on the table for almost six months afterwards is inexcusable,” he said.
