Ongoing delays in Illness Benefit
DELAYS in the payment of Illness Benefit were raised in the Dáil by Sinn Féin Deputy John Brady. He told the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection Regina Doherty that the whole saga had been an unmitigated mess.
‘ The sickest and most vulnerable people in the State are looking for their entitlements and benefits,’ he said. ‘ They paid into the Social Insurance Fund in the hope that it would kick in as a safety net when most needed, but it failed them. I have heard the apology to people who have been messed up since August. They have been running from pillar to post in an attempt to get money to which they are entitled. There was a major failure in communications between the Department and the recipients. Some community welfare officers around the State were stepping in to give payments, but others were not. They claimed that people were not entitled to payments because they had received part-payments.’
In response, Minister Doherty said her department had experienced significant difficulties in processing illness benefit payments in recent times which, regrettably, had impacted on people in a manner that has correctly been described as unacceptable.
‘ The root of the difficulty lies in the transfer of the illness benefit scheme to our new core business objectives information technology, IT, platform on 4 August,’ she said. ‘ The transfer had a number of objectives, including moving the Illness Benefit payments from a very old IT platform which is approaching end of life to a newer platform which already manages most of my Department’s other payment schemes.’
The redesign of the medical certificate enabled the forms to be scanned rather than manually entered into the system, she said. However, approximately 50 per cent of GP practices initially continued to submit old form medical certificates which led to long delays in claim processing on the new system in early August.
‘ The delays were overcome by the Department implementing an automatic certification process to ensure that people, including those whose GPs were not submitting the correct certificates, were paid. Although the process ensured that people received their payments, it resulted in approximately 15 per cent of recipients receiving a split payment in the period from September to November.’