The Social Welfare Appeals Office is taking more than three weeks longer on average to process cases before it, even though the volume of appeals it received fell last year.

A woman who was forced into prostitution and sexual exploitation after being trafficked into Ireland at the age of 14 has brought a High Court challenge over a refusal to backdate child benefit payments for her daughter, who was born here and who has refugee status.

A destitute woman was offered a one-way train ticket to Belfast by social welfare officials after being denied benefits to which she was legally entitled.

Social welfare claimants whose applications for benefits have been turned down are facing “unacceptable delays” of several months in having the decision appealed, the Department of Social Protection has admitted.

I WRITE with reference to your excellent coverage of the hardship being endured by returning Irish immigrants applying for social welfare (July 29), many of whom are falling foul of the habitual residence condition” (HRC).