Mr. Jim Breslin:

The original references to the budgetary implications had their genesis, if one rolls it back, in what the Ombudsman had found. There were two particular findings. One was that there was an arbitrary age limit such that if one was over 65 years, one could not apply. It was said that was not consistent with the Equal Status Act, as it was purely arbitrary. Obviously, if one removes a limit, a scheme is likely to apply to more people, if one does not do anything else with it.

The other aspect was that there was criticism that it was confined to particular disabilities. The scheme was principally focused on physical disabilities. I do not want to raise unreal scenarios, but I will illustrate a more exaggerated one. If one was to drop the age limit completely and say a person with any disability or condition could apply, that would be a very wide scheme which would have obvious and real budgetary implications. The task is to look at it afresh and ask who are the people in greatest need and try to come up with new criteria, as opposed to fixing the old scheme. That is what we have been engaged in.