Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I echo the Chair's comments on the school meals programme. We have a major problem with the small number of suppliers. I believe something between €2 and €2.50 is the amount provided for a hot dinner, which is not an awful lot of money. We are not being overcharged here in Leinster House and yet a hot plate costs more than that. This programme is for growing youngsters who should be eating you out of house and home.

I wish to return to the partial capacity benefit. I ask the Minister to provide the numbers for those in receipt of full-rate and half-rate partial capacity benefit, in other words the full-rate invalidity pension and allowed to work and the various grades down. I do not think it is a huge number. When we consider that these people have at least a moderate disability, it would be better to give it. In many cases, work is intermittent.

I am aware of a person who was refused invalidity pension. If they had been on invalidity pension, there would have been no problem and they would have got partial capacity benefit. This person has multiple sclerosis. I thought this was an extraordinary decision on the part of the Department. They were getting paid for interacting with the university by telling the university how the multiple sclerosis was progressing and the effect it was having on them. They were getting a stipend for doing this. That was liable to PAYE and they were considered to be working. I thought that was harsh. We had to advise the person to stop the work, apply for invalidity pension and then apply for partial capacity benefit. Particularly given the circumstances whereby the advanced stage of the illness was the reason they were of research interest, I thought that was very difficult. I understand that it is not possible to make rules for hard cases, but I thought it was a bit black-and-white for that person and anyone in an equivalent situation.

I would like to find out how many people are in receipt of partial capacity benefit because I believe it is very small. If that number is as small as I think it is, given that they all have moderate or profound disabilities, they should get the disability allowance of €400 and we should not be arguing about it.

I welcome the Minister's commitment on means testing which is a major breakthrough.

There are other issues with means testing on which I will get back to the Minister. She knows about those issues. We will park them for a day. When you are ahead, quit. I accept that.

The Minister said that this has been costed at €50 million. What was costed? I want the detail. In other words, which changes would cost €50 million? The detail would be very helpful because it is no good saying something will cost €50 million. A car could cost €100,000 or €30,000, depending on the car being bought, so I would appreciate it if we could hear or maybe have sent to the committee the details of what would cost €50 million.