Madam, - I am writing to draw attention to the appalling delays in processing Family Income Supplement applications. Thousands of low-income families are facing months of unnecessary hardship while waiting for the 40-plus staff of the Longford office of the Department of Family affairs to get their act together. At best this is a glaring example of gross inefficiency in the civil service and at worse it is an orchestrated go-slow to discredit the Government and damage the decentralisation process.
I have been waiting more than two months for my renewal application to be assessed. On phoning the Longford office today I was informed yet again that it is only now assessing applications received in July this year. This is the same response I received a month ago when I phoned the same office.
Can anything be done? Can the country afford to support the thousands of people waiting for these payments who now find it too costly to wait and work and are now having to return to being fully dependant on the State? - Yours, etc,
ANNE GRACE, Ard-Na-Mara, Kilcoole, Co Wicklow.