John Curran (Dublin Mid West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Mr. McKeon has indicated that a retired Revenue Commissioner is doing a review and that is important. When a Department is dealing with as many transactions as the Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection, there is always the potential for something to go wrong. The critical issue is how problems are dealt with. In this instance, the lack of communication was the problem. People were scared because they did not know what was happening. We could not get answers and people could not get answers. We cannot be critical of changing to a new IT system and a glitch occurring, because that can happen. Our concern is how the systems failure was dealt with because for a number of months there was no clarity around what was happening, and telephone calls to find out what was happening were not being answered. I hope that the review, apart from identifying risks and potential risks, will focus on the immediate steps to be taken in terms of communication with the public when something goes wrong. While this particular problem dates back to August, it was a long time before the scale of it became apparent. I hope that the review addresses that specifically.

Will Mr. McKeon clarify where we are today in terms of overpayments, underpayments and so on? As stated by members, there are people who have received payments who are not sure if it is their money. By and large, people are conscientious. They do not want to spend money that is not theirs. They worry about that. Will Mr. McKeon tell the committee where we are at in terms of the legacy issues?