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

I will never understand the number of crinkles we create in the system. It is petty stuff that you would play around with, particularly for people with very small incomes from self-employment. It is mind-boggling, particularly for those who are doing manual accounts, many of whom are in the small fishing and farming community who do not always have computerised accounts system. The Department might keep that in mind when it is devising these operational rules and Mr. Duff might ask it to consider that if it that is the way it is going to be, whether it could add four and multiple it by three and divide 6.5% by 12 to get an average for the year. For example, farming incomes come in in the autumn and expenditure comes in in the spring so it would be impossible to get a nine-month profit and a three-month profit.