Regina Doherty (Meath East, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

A change to legislation can only take effect on the day it is brought in. I will rule that out clearly and emphatically for anybody listening. There is no possibility or way for us to introduce something retrospectively. I will take responsibility for the mixed messages that the Deputy may be getting. The last day I was here, I answered a question from Deputy O'Dea and had hoped to be in a position to be able to bring the paper to Cabinet the following week or the week after. Probably because of my naivety, I did not realise that I cannot bring something to Cabinet unless I have the resources to fix it because to go to Cabinet is to ask somebody for a decision to fix something. Therefore I have to bring it to the Cabinet sub-committee. We made a commitment to recognise the anomaly, and we recognise it. The commitment to fix the anomaly is entirely in place. There might have been a loss in translation following something reported here of what I said and it was then suggested to the Taoiseach that we would fix it within a couple of weeks. He knows the reality, that this requires new money which is not currently there so he would have tempered his response accordingly.

When the paper is ready, it will be sent to the next Cabinet sub-committee. If that can happen before Christmas, it will be before Christmas, and if not, it will be immediately after Christmas. Arising from the discussions of that committee, based on the options to resolve this issue, it will be published and go to Cabinet thereafter. This anomaly will be fixed as soon as the money is available, depending on the options chosen in the paper to resolve the issue. The commitment has not changed. I stand with the Chair and say that this is an entirely separate issue from our pension reforms which will come into place in 2020. It is entirely dependent on the resources required to fix this and we all have to acknowledge that new resources are required to fix this but the intent is to recognise it as a stand-alone issue and to fix it as soon as we can.