2. Deputy Paul Murphy asked the Minister for Social Protection the action he will take to ensure that vulnerable individuals are not left without access to an invalidity pension for months due to delays in processing appeals, such as in a case (details supplied); if consideration is given to ill health in how his Department interacts with applicants; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [31713/26]

Sentiment score: -0.08

I ask the Minister about the long delays in invalidity pension appeals. I am aware of one such case but I wonder whether there are others. In this particular case, the original appeal happened in January 2025. It is now five months since there was an appeal to the chief appeals officer but there has been nothing back. This woman clearly cannot work. She has extreme migraines that mean she often cannot get out of bed. She can barely take care of herself.

Sentiment score: 0.17

In this case, the woman is often in so much pain that she cannot leave the house. Sometimes, she might be well and can function as others can, but on other days she cannot even open her eyes. She is obviously not in a position to find work. There is a question as to whether this case is illustrative of a wider approach of delaying appeals. The woman has made the point that she has the capacity to fight, contact a Deputy, write letters and do those things. However, she acknowledges that plenty of people cannot necessarily do that and, when confronted with a wall of delays and refusals, might just give up. Is this part of a policy? It is interesting that the number of recipients of invalidity pensions has fallen at a time when the population has increased and the number of recipients of other payments has increased. I wonder whether there is some sort of policy or approach being implemented to push people back from receiving what they are entitled to.

Sentiment score: -0.01

In that case, I do not know whether the Minister or Department has carried out any analysis of this area. What is the explanation for the decline in the number of recipients of invalidity pension? The number was about 55,000 in 2015, which rose to 59,000 in 2020, but the figure has fallen year on year to a low of just over 55,000 in 2024. There has been an increase of only 1% despite the population having significantly increased over ten years. The number in receipt of carer's allowance is up from 62,000 in 2015 to almost 100,000 in 2024, a 56% increase. The number in receipt of disability allowance is up from about 120,000 to close to 170,000, but the number in receipt of illness benefit has fallen. The Minister has said there is no policy of his predecessor's "I, Daniel Blake" policy, which was withdrawn and is not being implemented through the back door, in terms of targets to refuse applications or make it harder for people to access illness benefit and invalidity pension.

Sentiment score: -0.07