3-month delay for dole pay-outs

UNEMPLOYED people claiming the dole for the first time are waiting over three months in parts of the country to receive social welfare payments.

The Government was yesterday criticised over the delays in processing claims for jobseeker allowance as new figures supplied by the Department of Social and Family Affairs revealed major backlogs at social welfare offices.

People claiming unemployment benefit in Edenderry, Co Offaly, must wait 13½ weeks to have their cases processed — the longest delay anywhere in the Republic.

Other centres with delays in excess of three months are Rathdowney, Co Laois, Bandon, Co Cork, and Ballyconnell, Co Cavan.

In total, first-time jobless applicants at 17 of the 123 social welfare offices in the Republic must wait over two months to have their claims processed.

Labour spokesperson on Social and Family Affairs Róisín Shortall said: “Government efforts to deal with the long processing times for jobseeker claimants are falling far short of the mark.”

She said the new figures were compiled before an extra 26,576 people signed on in February, bringing the total number of unemployed to over 354,000 — an 8.1% increase on the previous month.

In a written reply to a parliamentary question from several opposition TDs, Minister for Social and Family Affairs Mary Hanafin admitted processing times in some areas were still too long.

“We are doing our best to reduce them,” the minister remarked.

She explained there had been a 74% increase in the number of claims processed in social welfare offices in the last quarter of 2008 — with almost 155,000 new claims accessed during the period.

However, Ms Hanafin stressed the average time for applications for the jobseekers allowance to be processed nationwide was five weeks.