Malignant Paddyism to compare Ireland to UK, says Willie O’Dea

Constant comparisons of Ireland with the UK are a form of “malignant Paddyism” a former minister has claimed in the Dáil.

Fianna Fáil’s Willie O’Dea criticised references to Britain during a debate on the social welfare appeals system when Minister of State Kevin Humphreys said processing times for appeals in this jurisdiction compare favourably with the UK.

Mr O’Dea said “we are coming up to the 100th anniversary of 1916 and we have been an independent country for almost 100 years”.

He referred to the late Fine Gael TD and constitutional expert John Kelly. He said Mr Kelly, “described this constant tendency to look at what is happening in the UK, of emulating the UK and of measuring ourselves against the UK as malignant ‘Paddyism’ and I agree”.

Mr O’Dea was speaking as he introduced his Social Welfare Appeals Bill, which he said aimed to speed up appeals so that they took a maximum of 12 weeks.

He said the success rate of appeals had risen from 43 per cent to 56 per cent, when between October 2013 and September 2014, 19,000 out of 34,000 cases taken were successful. He said this showed “more than half the decisions taken by the deciding officer at first instance were incorrect”.

He also said the average time taken for an oral hearing was 29.3 weeks, about seven months, but individual cases could take much longer. While waiting, some people ended up literally destitute and in need of the assistance of family and friends to tide them over, he said.

Mr Humphreys acknowledged that between 2010 and early 2013 there were “unacceptable delays in the appeals process” but he said this was the consequence of the dramatic and unprecedented increase from late 2008.

He said that before 2009 there were about 15,000 appeals annually but by 2012 this had doubled to 35,500 and the number of appeals remains high.

Last year there were 32,777 appeals, the second highest annual number, but significant effort and resources had been devoted to the system and there had been a dramatic improvement in processing times for oral hearings. The times fell from 52.5 weeks in 2011, to 29 weeks, a reduction of almost six months.

He said in Britain appeals took an average of 30 weeks.

Rejecting the legislation, Mr Humphreys said that a 12-week deadline could mean that even if the underlying conditions for receipt of the social welfare payment were not met, an appeal would be allowed simply on the basis of elapsed time and this would be a “misuse of public funds”.

Sinn Féin social protection spokesman Aengus Ó Snodaigh said there was a problem in the system when the number of appeals upheld was some 40 per cent.

“Other social welfare applications that go to appeal might see 10per cent or 15per cent upheld,” he said.

When an application is made, not all medical documentation might be present or clear, but rather than making a decision of refusal, “a deciding officer would be better served by asking an applicant to get his or her doctor to fully explain the issue”.

Mr Ó Snodaigh acknowledged that major progress had been made in the past five or six years with the 50 per cent reduction in the length of appeal times.

He also called for greater clarity when the Department writes to social welfare recipients to alert them of a review of their case, because people did not understand what a review meant.

“It must be made clearer to the applicant. This might cut down the number of appeals and the length of time people are without payments.”