A two-week long dispute in the office that handles child and treatment benefit applications nationally is no closer to resolution despite a backlog of nearly 30,000 cases.
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The office of the Department of Social, Community, and Family Affairs in Donegal today confirmed there has been no formal contact with union officials since the dispute arose two weeks ago.
Since October 2nd, 157 clerical workers at the Letterkenny office, which has responsibility for processing applications for child and treatment benefit for the whole country, have been refusing to deal with any telephone or fax inquiries or work over-time.
Staff have long complained about a perceived lack of resources, and according to Mr Kevin Coughlan, President of Civil and Public Services Union (CPSU). Their exclusion from the recent implementation of a "computer project" prompted the present action.
"We have no difficulty with the project per se, but are not pleased by the fact that management didn't consult the workers about it," he said. "We would liked to have agreed a certain level of staffing and a certain structure before going ahead with it."
A spokesperson for the Department, said eight temporary positions were recently created in the Letterkenny offices, of which five will be made permanent in March 2002.
There is currently a backlog of between 25,000 and 30,000 benefit applications. October is the busiest month of the year for the office because of the amount of new applications for children over the age of 16 who are returning to second or third level education.
While the dispute has slowed the treatment of new applications even further, both the CPSU and the Department denied it has caused disruption to payments which were approved prior to October 2nd.