Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

She is expressing the view - it is right to hold the view - that the law is the law and the State should uphold the law. I do not see how the Department can evade that responsibility. Given that the Minister of State said she would take a serious look at the scheme, can we take it she has not done that since the matter was brought to her attention in 2009? That would appear to be the case and that is the sense one gets from the report and comments of the Ombudsman which is a serious failing on the part of the State.

The Minister of State said no legal cases have been taken. I am not a legal expert but on the face of it if anybody takes a legal case he or she will win, given that she has admitted the schemes are not compliant with the law. The law provides that the changes should be made and these people should be eligible. If they take a case they will win and, frankly, since the issue is in the public domain I would be surprised if people do not start to take cases because they are legally entitled to do so. Not only this Government but the last Government failed to address this serious issue but it cannot be evaded any longer. The Government has to act urgently. What the Minister of State appears to be saying is that she does not know what to do. This Government and the previous Government have been sitting on the issue for the past few years and do not know what to do. It is proposing to invite experts in to try to figure out what to do but it is not compliant with the law. That is a drastic state of affairs. Has the Minister of State nothing more to say other than that she will get somebody else to look at the scheme?