Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

There were three bereavement grants available at one stage. There was the general bereavement grant that almost everyone received and which was abolished by the previous Government. There is a bereavement payment in cases involving the death of a person in the course of work. It is PRSI related. If a person dies in the course of his or her work or even on the way to work, the payment is made. It remains in place. There is also a payment that is based on the exceptional needs payment which one requests from the community welfare officer. It is my intention to extend the bereavement payment scheme to cover self-employed persons killed in the course of or on the way to work.

I agree that it would be nice to restore the general bereavement grant, but it would cost between €20 million and €30 million to do so and the money was not available in the budget to do so on this occasion.

In terms of my priority list of things I would like to do if I had a little more money, at the top of the list is the back to school clothing and footwear allowance. The bereavement grant would be further down the list, but if we continue to enjoy economic recovery and see recovery budgets, the measures I will be looking to have reinstated include the telephone allowance, the back to school clothing and footwear allowance and the bereavement grant, but it was just not possible to accommodate them in the envelope I had available to me on this occasion.