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

The focused policy assessment is being done already and it should be ready by the end of quarter one or quarter two of 2017. At that stage, it can be referred to the committee for its deliberations. To answer the Deputy's bigger question, we will need to have a good session at the committee sometime next year on where we are going with the working family payment. The working family payment can be anything from an additional top-up on top of everything else that exists or it could become a whole new thing that replaces FIS and the back to work family dividend and which is there to lift the incomes of low income families and does not bother itself too much with the recipient's marital status, who they live with or the rest of it. When I have an options paper ready on it, we will need to have a proper, detailed discussion about it in this committee because it could potentially be a big feature of budget 2018 and also a potentially expensive one. I am keen to do that.