A Donegal TD has called on the Department of Social Protection to provide more staff in order to deal with a back-log of domiciliary care payments.
These are monthly payments for a child under the age of 16 with a severe disability who requires ongoing care.
Fianna Fail Deputy Pat the Cope Gallagher said he was shocked when he discovered that some payments are taking up to 18 weeks to process. Deputy Gallagher raised the issue with the Minister for Disabilities, Finian McGrath, in the Dáil recently.
In his reply to Deputy Gallagher, the Minister informed him that extra temporary staff have been allocated to process these payments but it will take a number of weeks to train them.
Deputy Gallagher argued that these delays could be easily dealt with had the Department acted earlier.
