John Deasy (Waterford, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The Department has obviously thought about this because in her opening statement, Ms O'Donoghue mentioned that the maximum payment that can be deducted per week was €2 to €3. That was increased to 15% which translates to a deduction of €28 from a payment of €188, so the Department has thought about this. My guess is that nobody among the public knows this. It might be on the books for less than a year but I do not believe this deterrent is in people's minds. I looked at England where it has been proposed that the deduction be 25%. They are far tougher. How did the figure of 15% come about within the Department? How did it make a decision that it needed to be changed and why did we wait so long for that change to occur?