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

The other point is that it seems to be the case that payment will not be automatically backdated. Some people might get it backdated if they applied at the time. I would have thought that could not be done in that there was no way of applying. Nobody has issued any formal statement saying people can apply for widow's pension retrospectively and they should put in an application. I am interested in Ms Lucey's view as to whether this issue would stand up for five minutes in a court when there was no way of making an application and nobody was advised to do it. It was always the case that if people were wrongly advised on anything by the Department of Social Protection - if they got an overpayment and could prove they were wrongly advised, for example - they would be on solid ground, although they would have to be able to prove it. In this case, we can prove that nobody was advised to apply. There was no public campaign advising people to put in an application form. In fact, there was no way of putting in a claim. Therefore, I am very surprised that anybody could think it would be legally sound to say that if people applied for this mythical thing that does not exist, they are in, and if they did not apply, they are out. We are talking about very small beans, as the figures prove. I accept the tsunami theory. There has to be reality about State expenditure. However, in this instance, there does not seem to be any cause for concern, in the context of the Department's expenditure of €27 billion or €28 billion.