75. Deputy Mark Wall asked the Minister for Social Protection the progress his Department has made in reducing the waiting times for processing social welfare appeals. [67654/26]

As of end of Q2 2026, the current average processing time for a decision to be made on appeals by the Social Welfare Appeals Office is 12 weeks.  This is a reduction from 12.8 weeks as of end of Q1 2026 and from 21.2 weeks at the end of 2025.

Additional resources were allocated to the Social Welfare Appeals Office at the end of 2024 and throughout 2025.  Furthermore, an Appeals Modernisation Project was completed in 2025.  The project streamlined and enhanced the end-to-end appeals process for the customer and provided online capabilities on MyWelfare for making appeals.  It provides a secure, comprehensive, online appeals service for customers.  It improves the customer experience by offering an additional online channel, facilitating 24/7 access to view their current appeal status which has helped improve communications with appellants during the appeals process.

Additionally, New Social Welfare Appeals Regulations (S.I. No. 744 of 2024) came into effect in April 2025.  The purpose of these regulations is to modernise and streamline the social welfare appeals process, providing greater clarity, improved consistency, and more defined timeframes.  This has also helped reduce the length of time it takes for appeals to be processed and decided.

My Department understands the many pressures faced by people and always seeks to ensure that claims are processed as quickly and efficiently as possible.  However, the drive for efficiency must be balanced with the competing demand to ensure decisions are consistent and made in accordance with the provisions set out in primary legislation and regulations.

I trust this clarifies the matter for the Deputy.

ENDS