Martin Daly highlights high DCA rejection rates and appeals backlog

called to another meeting in our constituency. Minister, I want to raise the issue of the high rejection rate for the domiciliary care allowance applications. Families caring for children with disability are under immense pressure and when these applications are refused it adds a normal emotional financial strain. Almost one in three applications are being turned down with many only succeeding on appeal and a considerable number of them being overturned on appeal. I do recognise the decreased waiting times for the appeals from your office. Thank you. Domiciliary Care Allowance or DCA is a non-means tested payment of €360 per month. It is payable in respect of a child aged under 16 with a severe disability. The child requires continuous care and attention substantially over and above that required by other children of their age. Applications for DCA are decided by a deciding officer on an individual case-by-case basis based on the details that are provided in the application form by the applicant but also by the child's GP or specialist. All new applications for DCA are referred for the opinion of a medical assessor in the department. The medical assessor will consider the severity of the child's condition, their expected duration, the child's associated care needs and provides their medical professional opinion in relation to the child's eligibility for DCA. This is to aid the deciding officer in making it fair and an accurate decision on the eligibility of the child for the scheme. The main reasons to date that applications for DCA are unsuccessful is that the application does not show that the child satisfies the medical criteria for the scheme. Eligibility for DCA is not based entirely on the disability or diagnosis but primarily on the impact of the disability or diagnosis in terms of the associated care and the attention required by the child compared to another child of the same age without their disability. Where decisions are overturned on either review or appeal this does not mean the initial decision was incorrect. A decision can be overturned because the person requesting a review or appeal provides additional information that had not been previously available. Applicants are asked to provide as much detail as possible at application stage. I am committed and my department officials are committed to providing a quality service to applicants for DCA. Earlier this year we extended the My Welfare service to provide for an online application process. As part of this process the opportunity was taken to explore the design of the application form to make it easier for applicants. This involved consultation with relevant groups and I will then go to that again. Thank you Minister. Between 2020 and 2024, 52,541 applications were made and 35,234 were granted. Out of the 17,695 that were not allowed, 11,087 appealed with 60% of the appeals being overturned and so the DCA being allowed. 67 cases were taken for judicial review and 50 out of the 67 were won. I suppose my concern is and I absolutely accept your bona fides and your departments in this regard that we have to have a robust system that the DCA goes to the people who need it most but we also have to be careful that the system isn't too rigid and leaves people behind. And I'd like, I'd like, I'd like, we're possibly the most, this entire office is probably, we engage with all the forums on every daily basis so I'd certainly like to get that feedback from you all. We did look at the DCA forum during the year and we engaged with DCA recipients and with CARES advocacy groups which improved the process, we gave additional information and online videos but I want to make that as seamless as possible. I'm very conscious, very conscious and I keep reminding the officials of my department that the parents who are applying for DCA are going through really, really difficult journeys. We silo them and we make their lives very, very difficult and we want to try and make this as easy a process. Bearing in mind there needs to be controls but we need to make this process as easy as possible. Just in relation to appeals, we've also prioritised DCA appeals throughout 2025. There's currently 420 DCA appeals in hand. That figure in January 2025 was 1,700. And of that 420, 92% of those appeals have been received since August 2025. So I've made a very direct decision to focus on DCA appeals. It's going to kick out some other appeals but I really want to make sure that we get these forms properly and that they're not re-traumatising parents who are already in very, very difficult daily situations. Thank you. Thank you Minister again and thank you for the tone in your reply because that's really, really important because this is about compassion, fairness and efficiency. And I suppose the fact that such a high proportion of decisions are overturned and appealed suggests that the initial assessment process isn't working as it might. And it does create unnecessary stress and pressure on parents who are already under additional pressure. But I also want to recognise the increase in the income disregard in the carers allowance means that many of those, for a long time, many of those families in that situation was the only payment they were getting from the state to support the child with disability. But with your initiative in terms of the income disregard that hopefully many more of those families will receive more support. But I suppose I would ask maybe, and I think you've done that, would you commit to publishing regular statistics on approval, refusal rates, processing times and appeal outcomes, and perhaps establishing a working group with parent representatives, disability advocates, so that we deal with this issue in a humane and compassionate way? Minister. We've made a lot of changes in recent years to DCA. So I think in fairness to the department, in 2015, 10 years ago, there were 29,305 people who received DCA in respect of 31,628 children. And in 2024, that's 57,319 people are receiving DCA in respect of 64,676 children. So we are absolutely committed to ensuring that people have that support. We want to make changes where there is possible. We've also expanded the payment in relation to DCA to parents of children or babies who remain in hospital immediately after birth. And we've doubled the period which DCA has continued to be payable for a child that's submitted to the hospital on a full-time basis. And the changes in care, as Deputy Daly has said, will also ensure that people get a lot more support. So we're committed to supporting parents. The department is committed to doing that. But it's the feedback we get from discussions like this that we'll bring to the table in terms of those forms, in terms of the application process, and are constantly ensuring that the appeals process, in particular, is as efficient as possible. And that's why the online process has made a big change. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks. You're welcome. Now, thank you. You're welcome. That's all, thank you, the issue. Thanks. So, thank you very much for us. You're welcome. Thank you, thank you. We're welcome. Now, we're very pleased to thank you to the social media lobbyist, we're going to be the opportunity to support students as well.