Lisa Chambers (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I apologise for being in and out. We had more votes than we thought we were going to have. It has been one of those mornings. I thank the witnesses for their presentations. I have been listening from the office. I apologise if this has been asked about already but one thing that really caught my eye in Mr. Dunne's document related to the payment scheme that has been put in place for artists. It was suggested that this could be the basis for a new way of thinking about financial supports for carers. Will he elaborate on the thinking behind that? It is a novel suggestion that we have not discussed, partly because that scheme is brand new. It may be a good starting point for us. He also linked the issue to the amounts people receive in the foster care system because that also involves a caring role. There is a substantial disparity between that rate of pay and what carers are getting. I was going to ask about people who identify as carers but I believe Ms Duffy has dealt with that. It was interesting that there was such a big gap with regard to the Central Statistics Office figure. I would not have expected that. It draws our attention to the fact that we cannot trust some of the data we are working off.