Peter Burke (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)

I hear what the Deputy said in respect of both amendments. First, we will keep the matter of reducing the period to four weeks under review. We did not want this new process to be the default mechanism. There is already a statutory process under way which the vast majority of employees will access, but once we get this bedded in we will keep that under review. There will be potential to do that in future, and if we need to do it we will. There are a number of supports available through our Intreo offices already, but we do not want to see employees under pressure, so it is absolutely something we will keep under review.

Obviously, the €600 relates to a wider budgetary decision. This matter has been raised on a number of occasions. It will be kept under review by the Department, but that will be as part of a wider budgetary decision as opposed to being done here.