Mr. Christopher Bowes:

That two-year time period is for families with children. It comes from the 2010 civil partnership and cohabitation legislation. This has been in place for a good while. I should point out that it is two years where there are children and five years where there and no children. This is the length of time used in the legislation for effectively establishing that people are in an intimate and committed relationship.

On the transition provisions, it is important to highlight that there are what we call "saver clauses" within the legislation. People who are divorced and separated who have been claiming the payment up to now, and up to the point until the 2025 Bill is enacted will maintain their entitlement. There will not be any further new claims from people who are divorced or separated. Those saver clauses would capture those people.

With regard to funding in the long term, as I mentioned in reply to Deputy Gallagher earlier, most people claiming these schemes come under the contributory side of the scheme. There is less take up of the non-contributory version. Most of the funding of it would be through the social insurance fund. This is my understanding of where the funding is coming from for the contributory version of this scheme.

I agree with the Deputy that the impact of these changes should be reviewed. Our hope is that the amendments will be accepted, existing entitlement will be maintained and separated cohabitants will be brought within the scope of the scheme. This is what our amendments are trying to achieve and instead of bringing it down, to level it up to include those separated cohabitants, and then maintain this existing entitlement that has been there for divorced and separated people. In her opening statement, Ms Barry pointed out that the Department needs to be looking at the potential impact of this now so they are subject to the public sector human rights and equality duty. This brings in a requirement to make sure they are trying to prevent any sort of extreme form of poverty, and that this would be encapsulated within that. We actually want the reviewing and the assessment done now by the Department to make sure that officials fully understand the potential impact of the changes they are proposing. Unfortunately, answers to a number of parliamentary questions that were submitted to the Minister for Social Protection indicate that those sort of assessments have not been undertaken to date. We are looking at engaging further with the Minister and the Department on this.