Fianna Fáil TD for Cork North West, Aindrias Moynihan has called for swift action to ensure delays in processing Illness and Enhanced Illness benefit payments are resolved as a matter of urgency.
Following a question on the issue to the Minister, Deputy Moynihan, commented, “Back in early December the figures available showed that only 63.04% of payments were being processed within seven days. However, according to the Minister, they are now managing 92% within the seven days.
“I find this hard to believe as this is not what is being experienced here in my office, with some people waiting nearly a month for the applications to process. These delays are unacceptable as families rely on these payments and I urge the Minister to allocate the necessary resources to ensure the swift processing of these vital payments for families.”
According to the Minister, to date, a total of 416,175 COVID Illness Benefit related claims have been processed of which 382,587 have received a payment.
The majority of the standard Illness Benefit claims are automatically processed once medical certification from a GP and an application from the customer has been received.
Applications for the Covid Enhanced Illness Benefit increased significantly during January due to transmission of the Omicron variant. An average of 31,300 applications were received weekly as compared to 8,000 per week in December. Despite this increase, 92% of these applications are processed within a week. Applications that require manual intervention are taking approximately two weeks. The Minister added that officials are working to clear all claims as quickly as possible with additional resources allocated to this work as a priority.