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Annual Report of the Ombudsman 2008 (text version)

6.2.4 Selected Cases - Citizens of other EU countries in Ireland claiming child benefit and delays in getting responses

In December 2008 my officials met with officials from the department to discuss my concerns in relation to the volume of complaints I had received in the previous two years or so, about long delays in processing EU child benefit claims.  These delays arose mainly because of a sudden very large rise in the number of EU child benefit claims being made and the need for the department to put in place appropriate procedures for obtaining information from the authorities in other EU states.

Entitlement to child benefit is governed by EU social security law and the administration of that law is quite confusing and can be slow. I must acknowledge the fact that significant delays in processing these applications have existed and continue to exist. However, arising out of the meeting with the department's officials, I also have to acknowledge that there are valid reasons as to why these delays originally occurred, resulting in a considerable backlog of cases, and also that the department has made, and is continuing to make, significant progress in its efforts to eliminate the remaining backlog of cases. In this regard, I was advised that, under the department's current plan for dealing with EU child benefit cases, it envisages that the existing backlog will be eliminated by the end of June 2009 and it has provided data to demonstrate how this is to be achieved.

In light of the foregoing, I have decided that the most appropriate course of action in relation to these cases, is for my Office to monitor progress under the department's plan for clearing the backlog. In this regard, I felt that, so long as the department remains on target to achieve its goal of clearing the backlog by end June 2009, it should not be necessary for my Office to involve itself further in this particular matter. In addition, I also decided that, if I receive any new complaints about delays in processing EU child benefit claims, which the department subsequently certify as falling within its plan, I will not proceed any further with the examination of such complaints and I will advise the complainants accordingly. This is subject to the date of the claim falling within the general backlog period, that it will be processed in sequence and that there are no unforeseen problems. I will, of course, continue to examine complaints about child benefit claims which do not fall within the department's plan of action. I will continue to monitor the department's progress under its plan for dealing with these cases and, to assist me in this, the department has furnished me with a base-line figure for the number of cases in the backlog at 31 December 2008, as well as projected end-of-month figures for each month in the period January to June 2009. I have also arranged for the department to provide my Office with progress reports every two months setting out the number of claims remaining in the backlog on those dates and also providing a commentary on any gains, or slippage, during the period in question.

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