PEOPLE WHO lose their jobs are being forced to wait up to 15 weeks before they are paid social welfare entitlements, according to Fine Gael spokeswoman on social and family affairs Olwyn Enright.
“Newly unemployed people are waiting almost four months for jobseeker’s allowance payments because social welfare offices are overwhelmed by the number of new applicants,” Ms Enright said.
“It’s hard enough for people to lose their job in the midst of a deep recession. But to expect them to wait almost four months for their first social welfare payment is nothing short of callous,” she said.
But Minister for Social and Family Affairs Mary Hanafin said in a statement last night that the “average processing times for jobseeker’s benefit was two weeks and jobseeker’s allowance was five weeks last month”.
She acknowledged, however, that some offices have much longer processing times. In some cases “claims are more difficult to process as means-testing is required, or other checks, such as habitual residence and social insurance contributions made in other EU member states”.
Ms Enright said the most recent figures available from the Department of Social and Family Affairs revealed a wait of 15 weeks in Trim, 14 weeks in Navan, 13 weeks in Ballyconnell and 10 weeks in Edenderry, Kinsale and Portarlington.
Figures issued by the Minister, however, showed a waiting time last month of 11.49 weeks in Trim, 11.59 in Navan, 10.92 weeks in Ballyconnell, 9.26 weeks in Edenderry, 7.36 in Kinsale and 6.3 weeks in Portarlington. The longest waiting time was in Tuam, at 12.42 weeks.
Ms Enright said the scale of job losses was now escalating. Unemployment was already at 8.3 per cent of the workforce and the live register was set to reach at least 400,000 this year.
“If the social welfare offices cannot cope now, delays for jobseeker’s allowance can only get worse. The Government had plenty of warnings that Ireland was heading into an unemployment crisis, yet it failed to prepare for the current crisis by training extra staff.
“Minister Hanafin is now playing catch-up. Even the current new crop of social welfare office staff will not be enough to meet the rising demand. Meanwhile, newly jobless claimants are bearing the brunt of her failure. How exactly does Minister Hanafin expect these people to survive in the coming months if the State cannot provide an income?” Ms Enright asked.
She also said there were significant discrepancies between the number of outstanding applications and the waiting time. She cited the fact that the average wait in Ballyconnell was 13 weeks, although the office had only 102 applications, while in Cork, the average wait was six weeks with 1,684 applications.
Ms Hanafin said social welfare staff were working “flat out” under extreme pressure to ensure people received payments as speedily as possible.
“However, checks have to be made to ensure that people receive the correct entitlement. While some offices are experiencing a huge increase in claims, there is bound to be an impact on processing times.
“I appreciate that becoming unemployed is a very difficult time in a person’s life, and for many people this is the first time in their lives they are out of work. But the Government is doing everything to, firstly, ensure that the services are available to support them.”
Almost 2,000 staff were working in social welfare offices and 115 extra posts were recently approved. Additional staff will be allocated in coming months, she added.
