There have been ongoing issues in the Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection with the payment of illness benefit in recent months. Many people dependent on these payments have seen them disrupted, reduced or, in some cases, not paid at all. This has caused unnecessary upset and stress to many people who depend on these weekly payments. I would like clarification of the reason for these delays, when the issue will be resolved, and if the Minister, Deputy Regina Doherty, has confidence that these issues will not happen again.

This shambolic situation has been going on since August. Thousands of our citizens, some of whom are the sickest in the State, have received reduced payments or no payments whatsoever. It has not only had an impact on people financially, it has put them in precarious situations. They have been forced into debt and have had to face serious issues with tenancies because of being unable to pay rent. I welcome that the Minister has broken her silence on this matter and has issued some statements recently. In one on Friday, she said that over the weekend, if not on Friday, everyone entitled to the illness benefit would receive it. She was proved incorrect yesterday. Many people are still contacting me to say that they have not received a penny. We need an update on how many people have not received payments. More importantly, when will those people receive payment? Many people who have received reduced payments since August are also owed substantial sums of money. When will those people receive the money to which they are entitled?

The Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection, Deputy Regina Doherty, gave a commitment last week that the 20,000 people still owed some of their illness benefit payment, if not all of it, would be paid by Monday. Monday has come and gone and there are still thousands of people without payment. The knock-on effects include people having to borrow money and having to go to the community welfare officer to try to get an emergency payment. It is, as the Minister knows, also causing undue and unfair hardship. People have made their contribution towards this payment. This goes back to an information technology issue and at this stage that is not acceptable anymore. An information technology issue can surely be resolved in nine months. Will the Minister confirm to the House that the issue is finally resolved and that there will be no further hardship caused to the people on illness benefit, which is in itself a hardship payment?

A transition to a new information technology system in August led to a number of people on illness benefit receiving partial or no payments during recent months. Following remedial action taken by the Department in recent days, however, payment levels have now returned to normal. Action taken on two occasions last week led to 54,000 payments being issued. The normal activity is 50,000 payments. Unless Deputy Brassil has information to the contrary, every single person due an outstanding payment this week received his or her payment this week. Some people are still awaiting arrears from previous weeks, but every single person entitled to illness benefit in the last week has received a payment in the last week.

I am not happy with our communications over the couple of weeks. Most people in our Department and in this House will accept that our Department is especially customer-focused and is particularly engaged in communications. More than 6,000 people work, week in and week out-----

People could not get through. No one would answer the phones to people.

Please give the Minister time to respond.

-----to ensure they provide this service to the people entirely dependent upon it. We have said that on a number of occasions. I am not, however, entirely satisfied with the way things have been communicated in the last couple of weeks and, in particular, how we have resolved it. It took longer than we expected to resolve it. I have commissioned an independent review of how the changes in the illness benefit scheme were deployed, how they were implemented and how they were communicated both to stakeholders and to citizens and participants in that scheme. I will come back to the Deputies when I have that.