Jennifer Carroll MacNeill (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank Mr. McKeon for coming this morning. I should say how grateful everybody is for the simply extraordinary work carried out by his Department and officials in Intreo offices all around the country and at the end of the phone. The work that has been done is without parallel and it was a huge commitment. I am sure every Deputy here has seen the benefit of it. Where minor issues have arisen here and there, there has been a great responsiveness in sorting them out. It is a huge measure of public service and an extraordinary amount of work, as Mr. McKeon set out in his statement. Processing four years of claims in five weeks is an extraordinary amount of work.

I will turn to some of the outstanding practicalities before we get to some of the issues for today. A couple of issues that are important for people's lives are still outstanding. With regard to the pandemic unemployment payment, PUP, a person who cannot go back to work in a job that is still there because he or she is in a medically high-risk category is not entitled to the PUP and must go on illness benefit. I have in mind one particular lady with multiple sclerosis who worked three days per week and rented out a room. She can no longer rent out the room and cannot go back to work. She is not eligible for the PUP and is on illness benefit, which is means tested. She receives €159 per week and is left with €27 per week after bills. Her income has gone down substantially through no fault of her own. A number of people are in that sort of category and I am sure Deputies have stories of people experiencing difficulties that persist. We can move on to the other issues of the day but there are a couple of outstanding anomalies here and there. I thank Mr. McKeon for the opportunity to bring them to his attention, as he signalled earlier.

Will Mr. McKeon talk us through the paternity changes the Department is introducing, in particular the timeline for eligibility and when people will be able to claim it? A couple of procedural issues have arisen so I would be grateful to get an outline from Mr. McKeon in the first instance.