I was made redundant in the first week of October and went immediately to my local DSW office , made an appointment and about ten days later met with them. My employer delayed in producing P45 , so I had to wait about 3 more weeks before getting this, at which time I dropped it into the DSW office.
Today (Dec 10th) , having heard nothing from DSW , I phoned them, and after interminable waiting spoke with someone who looked up my 'Fresh Claim' ...
I was told that they have 'terrible staff problems' , and that they are only processing September claims at present !! I enquired as to when I might expect to hear something back, and was told that it might be a 'few weeks' .
I was somewhat shocked at this, since I have been without income now for over 2 months ,and it appears that I will be waiting up to 4 months in total to get a decision - no idea when I might receive a payment.
I have worked continually for over 30 years, have never claimed anything from Social Welfare ,in fact I paid over 65 k Euro last year in Tax , PRSI and USP charges. I am somewhat fortunate that I have sufficient funds to pay for my mortgage, living expenses etc for a few months , but I would imagine that there must be many people who are not so fortunate.
What on earth is going on with our Public Services ???