Mr. Christopher Bowes:

As I think we said the last time, we get regular queries on this. Every couple of weeks or so, we get something new into our telephone information referral line. The question that is currently coming in most often is when this legislation will be enacted. My sense is there is fairly good awareness of this. There should be some take-up scheme undertaken by the Department once these changes are brought in to ensure the new groups captured under the expanded scope of the schemes are made aware of their entitlement, particularly because there will be scope for backdating going back to the date of the O'Meara judgment. People may have significant entitlements to a backdated payment at the stage the legislation is enacted.

On the ex gratia scheme, there will be two groups of people. There will be those who became entitled before the date of the O'Meara judgment and the scheme will cover them from the date onwards but they may have had a period before the judgment took effect and, therefore, the scheme will also capture that period. There will also be people who became entitled at some point before the O'Meara judgment and are now no longer entitled for some reason. They may be cohabiting with or married to someone else so their entitlement may have ended. That could be someone who no longer has an ongoing entitlement but who had a period when they could have got the payment and effectively did not or, under O'Meara, would have got the payment but did not because it was not in place at that point.

On the shape of that scheme, we will need to look at whether people were able to access other social welfare payments during that time, whether they did access those payments, the number of qualified children and so on. I mentioned in my response to Deputy O'Reilly that if there was a scheme like that, it is important that we would not restrict it to people who had applied for the payment before the O'Meara judgment, even though they were not entitled. As we have said, most people who were cohabiting and lost their former qualified cohabitant partner would have been aware they were not entitled, so may not have applied or may have attempted to apply to the Department or the citizens information office. If they had contacted FLAC, we would have told them that, unfortunately, they were not entitled under the scheme at that point. It is important we would not restrict it in this way were a scheme like that to be put in place. The legislation as drafted only provides for entitlement after the date of the O'Meara judgment, so a scheme like that would have to take place on an administrative basis rather than under regulations relating to the 2005 Act.

On intimate and committed relationships, this concept arises in two ways in the 2025 Bill. First, it is for the purpose of establishing whether a person is a qualified cohabitant. In that context, it uses the same definition of qualified cohabitant as that in the 2010 civil partnership and cohabitation legislation. A pre-existing legal definition is already being applied by courts, so we have guidance and precedent for how this can be used. We believe this is a positive aspect of the 2025 Bill. It is assessed by reference to factors such as whether the couple were living together, for how long, whether there is financial interdependence and whether they own assets together. It is quite a high threshold for someone to be considered a qualified cohabitant. The intimate and committed relationship is just one factor.

The other side of where this concept arises in the 2025 Bill is for the purpose of establishing whether people who are married or are in a civil partnership, as Deputy Ardagh discussed earlier, are not separated but are in an intimate and committed relationship. When it arises in that context in the legislation, it is a lot more nebulous. It does not mirror the 2010 Act in the same way. It is all left up to ministerial regulations, which we do not have sight of yet. The amendments proposed by FLAC would remove this aspect of the scheme. This will not create a new entitlement for people who are married or are in a civil partnership and are divorced or separated. It just maintains the existing entitlement, which has been there since 1996. As far as we can see, it has given rise to no difficulties in administering the scheme. It has not made it unnecessarily complex and people have been able to access the payment.

We would very strongly push for the use of this idea of intimate and committed relationships insofar as married and civil partnerships are concerned. We would very strongly push our amendments to remove this new element of the scheme that is being proposed.