SOCIAL WELFARE offices are taking a range of fresh steps to help reduce the length of queues of people signing on the live register and speed up the processing of benefit claims.
A number of welfare offices around the country are beginning to allocate appointments for welfare claimants in order to help prevent long queues forming in the mornings and afternoons.
An initiative adopted in Dundalk – which involves jobseeker’s benefit claims being taken and decided on during a single appointment with a deciding officer – will be extended to other offices over a phased basis, according to a spokeswoman at the Department of Social and Family Affairs.
The sheer number of people applying for unemployment benefits has been leading to long queues outside a number of bigger social welfare offices in areas such as Cork and Dublin.
In addition, four new units of the Department of Social and Family Affairs are to be set up to process the dramatic surge in unemployment claims.
Minister for Social and Family Affairs Mary Hanafin said that over the last three months of 2008 staff had processed some 155,000 claims – an increase of 74 per cent on the same period the previous year.
Figures published this week showed the number of people signing on for jobseeker’s payments hit a record high of 327,860 in January, bringing unemployment to a 13-year high of 9.2 per cent.
Some 36,498 people signed on for the first time last month, as companies shed staff after Christmas, according to Live Register data released by the Central Statistics Office (CSO).
Ms Hanafin said her department’s staff was “very conscious of the pressures that members of the public are under when coming into the offices to claim jobseeker’s payments”.
To help speed up processing claims, four central decisions units will be set up in Dublin city centre, Sligo, Finglas and Carrick-on-Shannon, each of which will have 10 staff processing and deciding on claims, Ms Hanafin said.
They will be able to process claims from offices in various regions which are experiencing an increased claimload and backlogs in processing.
“We are looking at implementing a range of initiatives and are continually reviewing our claims processing system to help us deal with the unprecedented increase in claims for jobseeker’s payments,” the Minister said.
The department also said yesterday it had made its application forms for jobless people available online for the first time.
Ms Hanafin said the online development was part of a series of “improvement measures” being brought in to help speed up the process for those who have lost their jobs or who have been put on reduced working hours.
She said there was also a great deal of information on the site which meant people could take time to read the forms and understand what is required before making a claim.
“Being able to have the forms filled out in advance of arriving in the social welfare office and having the appropriate documents, such as P45, and photographic ID such as driver’s licence or passport, will help both the jobseeker and the offices processing claims,” she said.
- Forms for jobseeker allowance and jobseeker benefit are available for download from the "recently unemployed" section on the department's website, www.welfare.ie
Top 10: percentage increases
Westport, Co Mayo + 124.84
Ballybofey, Co Donegal + 123.04
Castlepollard, Co Westmeath +122.00
Kells, Co Meath + 121.44
Newmarket, Co Cork + 121.15
Monaghan Town + 120.39
Portlaoise, Co Laois + 120.13
Ballinrobe, Co Mayo + 118.32
Cashel, Co Tipperary + 117.55
Maynooth, Co Kildare + 116.88
Macroom, Co Cork + 116.53
* Source: Central Statistics Office