Willie O'Dea (Limerick City, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Obviously, we will not be opposing the Supplementary Estimate because we want people to get their Christmas bonus, as it is currently known. I have a few questions for the Minister. One of the reasons savings were made is because the Department operated at under the approved headcount for the last 12 months. What is the approved headcount and how many posts were vacant?

There have been suggestions that not everyone is aware of the existence of the working family payment, formerly known as the family income supplement. I note that the number of recipients of the family income supplement was 971 below the Department's estimate. What is the total number of recipients of that payment? Similarly, the number of recipients of the back to work family dividend is 791 below the estimate. What percentage of the total does this represent? On the other hand, the number of recipients of the disability allowance is 1,571 above the profile. Again, how many people are in receipt of disability allowance? On page 14 data is provided for the youth employment support scheme. The spend was €4.2 million lower than expected because the number of participants was 278 below profile. Does the Minister have any idea why that was the case? Is anything being done about it? I note that disability activation supports are somewhat below profile, as per page 15. Apparently part of the reason for this is that the number of claims was lower than anticipated. There must be something wrong here because it is not plausible to suggest that we are doing enough or spending sufficient money on encouraging people with disabilities into the workforce. Such a suggestion would be quickly contradicted. What is the situation in that regard? The data on page 16 is extraordinary. How many schools are availing of the school meals programme? The estimate is down by €4 million due to the fact that there have been delays in the submission of applications by 70 schools while a further 71 schools that are eligible have not applied at all. A total of 80 schools have applied and the Department has sought further information from them which has not been supplied. This suggests that they are not too bothered about the situation which I find quite bizarre.

Is it in order for me to ask a question on the contributory old age pension?