Westmeath Town Without Benefits For 21 Weeks

A Fine Gael Senator has revealed that a County Westmeath town has gone 21 weeks without providing a jobseekers payment to its unemployed.

The opposition party's Social Affairs spokeswoman, and local Senator, Nicky McFadden described the 21 week wait in Castlepollard as "scandalous".

Senator McFadden also accused Minister for Social and Family Affairs Mary Hanafin of trying to "distort" the situation in social welfare offices around the country.

The Senator's comments came after the Department of Social and Family Affairs published the latest processing times for Jobseekers claims on Monday.

According to the department's figures, in October, three quarters of claims for Jobseekers Benefit were processed within three weeks while two thirds of the means tested payment Jobseekers Allowance were processed within six weeks.

Commenting on the figures, Mary Hanafin said: "Each and every week we are seeing over 10,000 people claim Jobseeker payments and in October even greater numbers signed off to take up employment, enter training or education, begin self employment or due to outward migration."

However, the Senator rubbished Ms Hanafin's comments and disputed her figures. The Opposition Senator said: "Social Affairs Minister Mary Hanafin has presented the latest processing times for jobseekers claims as a good news story. But how can a 21 week wait for jobseekers benefit in Castlepollard be good news?

"The situation nationally seems to have deteriorated since July."

The Fine Gael Senator said that aside from the situation in Castlepollard, where the wait has gone up from 11 weeks to 21, other long witing times existed in Galway where the wait is almost 15 weeks, Navan jobseekers have been waiting 15 weeks and Drogheda has a 13 week waiting list.

The Senator continued: "And waits of more than 10 weeks for jobseekers benefit have been recorded in Tuam, Portarlington, Mullingar, Longford, Kinsale, Kilkenny, Boyle, Carrick-on-Suir, Edenderry, and Ardee.

"With 422,500 people on the live register, and unemployment at 12.5%, it is a scandal that newly unemployed people are expected to wait so long for essential State support. This problem is entirely of the Minister’s own creation because she waited so long before allocating additional staff to social welfare offices."

Announcing yesterday's figures, Minister Hanafin admitted there were a number of offices where further work was needed to bring processing times within more acceptable limits and that the Department was working on the matter "as a key priority".

(DW/GK)