Chairman:

I have some brief questions for the Minister. The figure for disability allowance is striking. Two questions must be asked because it is significant. Is the Department carrying out a review to understand what is happening? Second, the Minister referred to an increase of 8.2%. How many of the applicants for disability allowance will be transferring from other social welfare payments? The answer to that question might give us an indication of from where they are coming.

Subhead A36 relates to the mortgage interest supplement. How many people were in receipt of that at the start of the year and how many are currently receiving it? Is it still the intention that it will finish at the end of this year and will not be paid next year?

Finally, I had not intended to raise this matter but Deputy Joan Collins mentioned it. In her opening statement, the Minister referred to the Social Insurance Fund being ahead of target. It is the issue of the changes that were made in 2012 to the State contributory pension. When the Minister was before us a couple of weeks ago, she indicated - she did so in the Dáil as well - that she did not want to bring forward something half-baked and that she was nearly finished. We had expected that she would have had an announcement regarding what she was working on, or we were led to believe that she almost had something ready. That was in the interim to the roll-out of the proposals for the total contribution system. Will the Minister provide a further update on the position since she was before us two weeks ago?

Perhaps the Minister will address those questions. If Deputies have supplementary questions, we will take them when she has replied.