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

We would then be discriminating against all others who were adjudicated on under the 2012 legislation. Effectively, what we are doing is bringing forward a new law to recognise that people were outside the workforce for a variety of reasons. In most cases, we know that it was women who were rearing their families. We need to be cognisant of the fact that they were not in the system. Either way, it is not unique to this legislation. It is as if we introduced new legislation to outlaw the murdering of cats, although there is probably already a law-----