Mark Wall (Kildare South, Labour)

A lot has been said by my two colleagues and we need to hear from the Minister. The anomaly that has been spoken about by Deputies Coppinger and O'Reilly is something that nobody wants to create. We all welcome this legislation. It has cross-party and cross-group support right throughout the Oireachtas but this is something that has been flagged by a number of groups, including FLAC, Treoir and One Family. Nobody wants to create an anomaly. This is very welcome legislation but we cannot leave some groups behind following the death of a divorced or separated partner. This affects what may be a small group of people. Does the Minister have those figures with him this morning? Can he tell us how many people we are talking about? We do not want what is generally accepted to be good legislation to leave some groups behind. We need to hear in detail the Minister's thinking on why he is not accepting the amendments. I know he cannot accept them if they have been ruled out of order but I ask for his own point of view on them.