Achill people the quickest in country to receive dole

Achill people the quickest to receive dole


Edwin McGreal

If you are unemployed and living on Achill Island, your claim for jobseekers benefit or assistance will be processed quicker than any other centre in the country.
That’s according to figures released in DΡil Eireann last week by the Minister for Social Protection, Eamonn Ó Cuiv.
The figures show that those seeking unemployment benefit or assistance are processed, on average, in Achill in less than a day. No other centre has even close to the same turnover of claims in that short time.
The national average for jobseekers benefit is 2.33 weeks while the average for jobseekers assistance is 6.92 weeks.
Other Mayo centres don’t do as favourably as Achill, however. Castlebar, Ballina, Claremorris and Swinford are well above the national average for both benefit and assistance. Claremorris has one of the longest waiting list in the country for those seeking benefit - on average they must wait 4.47 weeks in the south Mayo town.
And those people in Ballina seeking jobseekers assistance must wait a phenomenal 14.64 weeks, on average.
As well as Achill, Belmullet fares out well with an average wait of 1.25 weeks and 1.53 weeks for benefit and assistance respectively. Westport and Ballinrobe are reasonably close to the national averages.
“Fourteen weeks is a long time to be waiting for an application to be processed,” said Deputy O’Mahony, of figures pertaining to Ballina, Swinford and Castlebar. “I understand that there are certain issues that effect the Jobseekers Allowance claim such as means assessments and examination of insurance records but being made wait over three months seems very long.
“It’s not like that in every office in Mayo and for example in Belmullet, a claim gets processed in less than two weeks. Everything has changed in the past two years with so many more people out of work and the change of circumstances has put huge pressure on the social welfare offices. However, every effort should be made to bring the waiting time for processing claims back down and closer to the national average,“ added O’Mahony.
In response in DΡil Eireann, Minister Eamon Ó Cuiv said everything was being done to bring the waiting time down.
””I think the deputies will agree that over the past year or more we have made huge efforts to reduce processing times. We will strive to reduce processing and the number of claims awaiting a decision even further where we can, either through streamlining processes and procedures further or through the introduction of new technology to assist with claims processing.”