asked the Minister for Social Welfare the reason for the delay in the payment of disability benefit to a person (details supplied) in County Waterford.

The person concerned claimed disability benefit from 21 February 1981 and was paid all disability benefit and pay-related benefit due from 25 February 1981 to 4 April 1981, after which date he was certified fit to resume work. The delay in payment of benefit was due to the fact that he quoted his insurance number instead of his RSI number on the medical certificates submitted in connection with his claim.

How up to date has the Minister got with regard to this cross-indexation that he has been speaking about? Surely if a person submits his insurance number the Department should be able to relate it within a matter of minutes. How advanced is the system?

The Deputy is talking now about something that was paid a good while ago. People are now quoting their RSI numbers. The percentage who were not quoting their RSI numbers initially was between 25 and 30 per cent. That is down now to between 8 and 10 per cent. At anytime one will get 7 per cent of people who will either give a wrong number or no number at all. We are virtually back to the normal quotation of numbers. The system is vast with 70,000 claims in a week for disability benefit and we still have cases coming up which, because of the communication difficulty, have taken some more time to resolve. But, by and large, the system is back to normal or is close to it.

It could not be.

How could I be paying out 73,000 disability benefit claims every week, about £3 million a week, if what I say is not true? What I say is true. There are still some outstanding problems and I accept that but relatively speaking people are now giving their proper numbers and on that basis they are getting their payments. But if they do not give the proper number it cannot be associated.

How can the Minister say that when all these questions have gone in in the last two or three weeks? I have asked a specific question and I want an answer. I asked how long does it take to trace the RSI number if a person merely submits his insurance number?

A cross index has virtually been built up but there is a limit to how far one can go. It is over 85 per cent efficient at this stage.

It is hard luck for the 15 per cent.

It is not. The Deputy should have listened to the other answers. There are 10,000 employers who have not made their returns. There is no way to get the record of people in those cases. It means there must be an investigation and we must pursue the employers. A figure of 10,000 employers bring in a lot of employees.

35.