asked the Minister for Social Welfare the reasons for the inordinate delay in paying disability benefit to a person (details supplied) in County Tipperary.

The person concerned was in receipt of disability benefit from 6 October 1980, fourth day of incapacity, to 19 February 1981, when, due to an administrative error, payment ceased. The matter has since been adjusted and all benefit due to 16 May 1981 has been paid, less the amount which was withheld for refund to the health board in respect of supplementary welfare allowance advanced.

What precise administrative error was involved which was responsible for the cessation of the payment?

A claim from the SouthEastern Health Board for recoupment of supplementary welfare allowance was received and payment of the benefit was stopped in error, pending the receipt and the details of the amount of supplementary welfare allowance paid.

Would the Minister consider that to have been fair to the applicant?

I appreciate that the workers in the Department are dealing with a very large number of cases.

There were large numbers of cases to be dealt with also last year and the year before and in previous years.

It is almost inevitable in dealing with such numbers that some administrative error will occur.

Is it fair that an official of the Department makes a decision deliberately that is unfair to an applicant?

There was no deliberate decision.

What was it, then?

It was an error on the part of an official.

It was the result of a deliberate decision on the part of an official of the Department.

We, on this side of the House, have always recognised that mistakes can be made. We witness them daily on the part of those on the other side. Can the Minister indicate if the procedures of administration have been so altered to ensure that the type of error we are talking of will not be made again?

I have tried to point out that this was a human error. Unless the Deputy has some special way in his approach to people of correcting human errors, such errors are bound to occur from time to time. Obviously, though, we are very anxious that they would be kept to the minimum.

29.