Mr. Kieran Coughlan:

Ostensibly the Minister for Finance brought it in, but there was a lot of consultation and negotiation with the commission and parliamentary parties at the time about drawing up the new scheme, which is before the committee today. There were a lot of improvements in it in the sense that at that point there were various allowances, like miscellaneous allowances and telephone allowances, which were paid automatically to Deputies regardless of the usage. These have now been transferred into a scheme where, potentially if they go for a vouched allowance, they are audited. It is based on usage. There are major improvements in that, plus the verification of attendance which was another big step forward.