{"id":297,"date":"2011-08-24T20:28:20","date_gmt":"2011-08-24T20:28:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/six-week-backlog-for-back-to-school-allowance-applications-unacceptable-crowe\/"},"modified":"2011-08-24T20:28:20","modified_gmt":"2011-08-24T20:28:20","slug":"six-week-backlog-for-back-to-school-allowance-applications-unacceptable-crowe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/six-week-backlog-for-back-to-school-allowance-applications-unacceptable-crowe\/","title":{"rendered":"Six week backlog for Back-to-School allowance applications unacceptable   \u2013 Crowe"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Six week backlog for Back-to-School allowance applications unacceptable<br \/> \u2013 <span class=\"il\">Crowe<\/span><\/p>\n<p> Sinn F\u00e9in\u2019s Education Spokesperson, Deputy Se\u00e1n <span class=\"il\">Crowe<\/span>, has described a<br \/> possible six-week backlog in the processing of Back-to-School Clothing<br \/> and Footwear Allowance forms as \u2018unacceptable\u2019 and a serious set back to<br \/> low income families with children who are attending school. <span class=\"il\">Crowe<\/span> said<br \/> the Minister was dithering while families awaited their badly needed<br \/> entitlements.<\/p>\n<p> Deputy <span class=\"il\">Crowe<\/span> said:<\/p>\n<p> \u201cToday\u2019s announcement from the Social Protection Minister Joan Burton,<br \/> that there could be a six-week delay in processing back-to-school<br \/> allowance forms is simply unacceptable. With just days before the new<br \/> school term commences, thousands of families who are already struggling<br \/> to make ends meet could be forced to wait until well into October, or<br \/> even later, before receiving their entitlements for school clothing and<br \/> footwear.<\/p>\n<p> \u201cIt is not good enough for the Department of Social Welfare to use the<br \/> excuse of increased applications for the Back to School Clothing and<br \/> Footwear Allowance (BSCFA) to justify the delay in processing this<br \/> payment. The Department only started dealing with the 66,000<br \/> applications received in the second week of July, and they are only able<br \/> to process 1,000 forms daily, so clearly the present system was going to<br \/> be overwhelmed.<\/p>\n<p> \u201cInternal memos circulated by Minister Burton\u2019s department state that it<br \/> could be months before the backlog is cleared.<\/p>\n<p> \u201cThe \u20ac200 available to parents qualifying for the allowance for children<br \/> aged 11 and under and \u20ac305 for children between 12 and 22 are to assist<br \/> with clothing their children for school. Many of the 66,000 applications<br \/> for the allowance are from people who are already in receipt of vital<br \/> allowances like the Disability Allowance, Occupational Injury Benefit<br \/> and Carer\u2019s Payments and on those incomes, cannot afford to wait until<br \/> October or November for this payment.<\/p>\n<p> \u201cThe Minister needs to intervene and ensure additional resources are in<br \/> place so that families can have quick access to this essential grant.<br \/> She needs to stop dithering and address this matter urgently.<\/p>\n<p> \u201cThere are enough unemployed people available and willing to work to<br \/> process these applications.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Six week backlog for Back-to-School allowance applications unacceptable \u2013 Crowe Sinn F\u00e9in\u2019s Education Spokesperson, Deputy Se\u00e1n Crowe, has described a possible six-week backlog in the processing of Back-to-School Clothing and Footwear Allowance forms as \u2018unacceptable\u2019 and a serious set back to low income families with children who are attending school. Crowe said the Minister was [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-297","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/297","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=297"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/297\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=297"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=297"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=297"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}