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

The way in which the discount is applied depends on the results of the quarterly labour force survey from the final quarter of each calendar year. The discount rate applies to the number of people going forward on the live register as opposed to going backwards so they are paid in the subsequent calendar year. The 8% discount was applied to all fees. That was for April to December last year. We recently applied for the discount for this year.

My apologies for being so rude to Deputy Bríd Smith. I have a document. Given that the Deputy only has a few minutes, I do not know whether she wants me to read it out. Alternatively, I can just give it to her. It details the process for the T12, which involves the ladies and gentlemen who will get their money back on foot of the legislation we will pass. We are in the process of recruiting. We need extra staff in one of our offices to look after all of these new applications. This recruitment will be completed by the end of this month. In early October, having recruited the additional temporary resources, we will engage in an in-house examination of 76,000 social insurance records. This will take a couple of months. At the end of that process, we will be able to tell each of those 76,000 people that they would have got €10 under the old system but that they are entitled to €12 under the new system, and that they can choose between the two. The Deputy's concern, which was raised on behalf of people who have spoken to her about it, that somebody might lose out will not become a reality because the person will decide whether or not they stay on €10 or move to €11. People who are on €10 and get moved to €9 will get the opportunity to remain on the €10 payment if they want. This means that nobody will lose out as a result of the changes we are making. People will only opt to move to an increased payment. They will certainly not opt to move to a reduced payment.

Initially, I would have thought that we would have introduced the legislation that is required to fix this anomaly in the social welfare Bill. It may not be part of the Bill; it might be easier to do it on a stand-alone basis. We are deliberating on that but either a small part of the social welfare Bill will deal with this issue or a small, stand-alone Bill will be introduced between now and the end of the year to ensure that we get ready to start making those payments at the beginning of next year. The payments will be backdated to March of this year. This is a three-page explanation, a copy of which I will forward to the Deputy later so that she will have it for her records.