Mr. Barry O'Brien:

Initially we would have been given a window of five or six weeks to reply to the original request from the Secretary General of the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform when it was decided to have an allowance review and a deadline was set. We had to give effect to that and respond to it. The information the Deputy has was first submitted in February of this year to the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform and it is on that basis that we are before the committee today in regard to what we submitted at that time.