Róisín Shortall (Dublin North West, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

I am concerned that the Minister repeated the misrepresentation about the calling of this meeting and the reason why it is taking place today. If the Minister checks with his Secretary General, he will realise that the circumstances are very different from what he is claiming. It was proposed up to two weeks ago that there would be a swap because the pressure is on to sign off on the Supplementary Estimate. I could not sign off on it today on the basis of the gaps in data and failure to answer various questions from all members of the committee. I do not think we would be doing our job if we signed off on the Supplementary Estimate today. We are going to have to look at circumstances for having another session. That can only happen once we get the data that have been requested today, however. We would be remiss in our responsibility to sign off on this in the absence of all that key information that has been requested.

I return to the issue of the Covid-19 recognition payment. I meet people on a regular basis, as, I am sure, everybody else does, who are really disappointed that having put in that big effort, they are now in a situation, ten and a half months after the Government announced this payment, where they have still not received it. The Minister of State indicated that there were delays in getting data back and all that kind of thing. Can the Minister clarify when he requested the staff data from the private providers?