Paul Donnelly (Dublin West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the review. It is a really important thing to happen. When we have constituents contacting us there is sometimes a cliff edge in that people have a certain income and once they are marginally over it they are either entitled to a payment or they are not. I am wondering whether we look at sliding scales. Some schemes involve such scales. Is that what is looked at in the implementation of every scheme? In other words, if somebody is €50 or €100 over the limit, could we make it that they not automatically excluded from it? I think, in particular, of adult dependents or somebody who is working while being a carer. I listened to one on the radio this morning who had been entitled to €9 and when this was reassessed it became €18. That is a full-time carer. That was based on someone else's income. We often find that there is an adult child in the house and the income of the parents is taken into account in relation to unemployment assistance, for example. That is really unfair. These are adults in their own right, yet they are assessed on the basis of their parents' income.

It is slightly unfair that they are considered adults in every other sphere of life, but the parents are the ones who are relied on to give them pocket money. Has that been considered?