asked the Minister for Social Welfare if he will consider amending the appeals system within the social welfare code to allow appeals be carried out by a person or persons independent of the Department.

There is a commitment in the Programme for National Recovery to simplify the social welfare appeals machinery, emphasising impartiality and ensuring that it operates on uniform criteria for eligibility. Recommendations in this respect were also made by the Commission on Social Welfare. A detailed review of the appeals system is at present being completed by my Department with a view to bringing forward proposals for reforming the system. The need to establish more clearly the independence of appeals officers is one of the matters which is being addressed in the context of the review.

Has a constitutional action ever been launched against this system where the deciding officer makes a decision and an appeals officer within the same office decides the appeal, subject, of course, to any appeal to the High Court on a point of law? Would the Minister agree that the system smacks of partiality in the public mind? By the way, this is not criticism of the officers concerned. It is the system which is defective. Would the Minister agree that when the Commission on Social Welfare reported on 14 May 1986 one of their recommendations was that an appeals office should be established as a separate executive office with an independent chairman? Surely that would solve the problem. Another recommendation was that information on the rejection of the appeal should be given to the appellant. This is an area where there is another serious defect, where we as Dáil Deputies can never respond to the many appeals. Something like 17,000 appeals were launched in 1985. The weakness arises in that we can never give information to those persons who have been refused applications by a deciding or appeals officer. I also urge that the appeals office should publish an annual report which would include, where appropriate, policy recommendations.

This is becoming a very long question.

I ask the Minister to consider that proposal because the system, as it operates at present, is unjust and unfair and we have an obligation to bring about justice in the system. Will the Minister, as a matter of urgency, rectify that system which operates unjustly against many thousands of people annually? It is the system I am criticising, not the people who operate it.

At the outset I should point out that the number of appeals lodged in 1985 represented 1.4 per cent of the total number of claims made under all schemes. The Deputy is correct when he says there is a perception that the appeals officers are working within the Department and consequently can be seen to be within the Department.

That is a fact, is it not?

There is a perception that they would be accountable to the Minister and would not be independent in their view. That is not the way the system operates. As Deputies probably know very well from their experience, they operate independently. Indeed that is what the Commission on Social Welfare found. They made four recommendations. They recommended that an appeals office should be established, as a separate executive office, with an independent chairman. That was their first proposal. Second, they recommended that information on the reason for the rejection of an appeal should be given to an appellant. Third, they recommended that such appeals office should publish an annual report and include, where appropriate, policy recommendations. Lastly they recommended that supplementary welfare appeals should be included in the general appeals system. These matters are being considered as part of the review. I should stress that we are satisfied that the office acted independently but nonetheless felt there were improvements needed, also that it was important that it be seen to be independent by the public at large and, for that reason, suggested a separate executive office. I would regard this as a priority matter. That is why I am having it urgently reviewed with a view to implementing revisions.

Can the Minister say who is reviewing the system? Is it officers of the Department reviewing themselves or are these people outside the Department or the Civil Service? Can the Minister tell the House when this review will be completed?

I do not know whether the Deputy considers the Minister as being inside or outside the Department. Certainly he is in the House, is responsible and answerable to the House.

The Minister is inviting us to be rude.

Officials of the Department are at present preparing the necessary material for such review. Outside advice will be taken if that is considered necessary. Some of the revisory measures are fairly clear. Deputies will be aware of some that should be implemented urgently. I want to ensure that a comprehensive view is taken, as a matter of urgency, of the possible revisions which could be effected at this stage.

I accept the Minister's impartiality and integrity. But I would not be too happy about the last part of his reply when he said that civil servants are reviewing themselves and the system under which they and their colleagues operate. I consider that strange, to say the very least. Will the Minister give the House an undertaking that he will keep a close eye on that position? I stress that it is not the civil servants I am criticising but rather the system under which they operate. We, the politicians — who come in for so much criticism — are responsible for that system which is a false, bad and unjust one.

Of course the system has been reviewed by the Commission on Social Welfare as an outside body. It is something in which I am engaging but I do not physically run around collecting pieces of paper and so on; sometimes I have to but not all the time. The Deputy can be assured that, as Minister, I am reviewing it but the people who are undertaking that work for me at present are civil servants.