Over half of all people obtained a positive outcome last year to their appeal against a decision to refuse or only part-grant them social welfare payments.
The latest annual report of the Social Welfare Appeals Office shows that 52.1 per cent of appellants in 2022 successfully challenged a rejection or part-refusal by the Department of Social Protection of their application for entitlement to a payment under various social welfare schemes.
The figure is down slightly on the successful appeal rate of 54.8 per cent in 2021.
The report revealed that 42.1 per cent of appellants had their claims rejected last year while a further 5.8 per cent of claims were withdrawn or not pursued.
The SWAO issued a decision on a total of 24,267 appeals during 2022 – an annual increase of 1 per cent.
The report showed 12,654 individuals had their appeals either fully or partly allowed.
One third of all appeals were finalised through a revised decision by the Department of Social Protection, mostly as a result of extra information being provided by an appellant.
The number of new appeals filed with the SWAO increased by 1.1 per cent last year to 25,093 – the highest annual total since 2014.
The SWAO said a return to a somewhat more normal employment situation following the easing of restrictions relating to the Covid-19 pandemic may have contributed to the number of Illness Benefit appeals from people in employment more than doubling in 2022 to over 1,500 cases.
It claimed a 34 per cent increase in the number of Domiciliary Care Allowance appeals last year to a record 2,084 might also be linked to diagnosis delays arising from Covid-19 pressures on the health system.
Separately, the SWAO said an 88 per cent increase in claims for the contributory State pension was due to changes introduced last year in how such appeals were processed.
The report found the average time to process all appeals last year was 14.9 weeks.
Almost two-thirds of all appeals were made by women with 37 per cent of cases coming from men.
Appeals
The most common social welfare payments to be appealed last year related to illness, disability and carers including the Disability Allowance, (5,637), Carer’s Allowance (2,824), Domiciliary Care Allowance (2,084), Invalidity Pension (1,633) and Illness Benefit (1,525).
There were also 2,117 appeals on decisions about entitlement to Jobseeker’s Allowance and another 1,020 concerning Jobseeker’s Benefit.
Commenting on the figures, the chief appeals officer, Elaine Quinn, said it was useful context to remember that the Department of Social Protection makes decisions on over two million claims each year.
Approximately 85 per cent of all claims are deemed eligible by the Department, with only 1 per cent of its decisions being appealed.
Ms Quinn said she was acutely aware of the time taken to process an appeal because of the direct impact it could have on people’s personal lives.
However, she stressed the importance of appellants and their advocates of providing all evidence relevant to their claim at the earliest opportunity in the decision-making process.
Ms Quinn noted that the Department of Social Protection was sometimes able to revise its decision as the person making an appeal had provided additional information which was not made available when the decision under appeal was first made.
