Mr. Jim Breslin:

On the work that has been undertaken, it may be worth opening up a general discussion. There is particular complexity in this work. If one had a greenfield site, one would set out some new criteria and identify the people who might qualify. In some ways, that is the easiest part of the legislative process. We have inherited an administrative scheme which was not operated on a firm legislative basis and which, in reality, had some inconsistencies in it. Under that scheme, 4,700 people qualified. We believe we are going to seek to come forward with something that can legally provide for those 4,700. That is the complexity of combining a new scheme with ensuring we keep the 4,700 people in payment. That is the particular challenge we have been confronting and we think we have made progress.

This goes to the point the Deputy has made about the interim period. In the interim period, the money for those 4,700 people has continued to be paid in recognition of their reliance on the payment. They have had that payment over many years, and to simply remove it when we closed the scheme would have been inappropriate and could have caused distress. They continue to get that payment. Any numbers falling out of the scheme have been very marginal in the interim period. That money continues to be ring-fenced and will be available for the solution we come up with in the general scheme.

The Deputy asked how many people could apply. It is difficult to envisage a number lower than 4,700 because if there are people in categories which might not in the future be eligible, but we want to keep them all within the scheme, then everybody new is going to be additional to the 4,700. It will be an increment of the 4,700. Essentially, it comes down to how broadly we throw the net open in devising the criteria for who should qualify. I am happy to talk about that in further detail as it is the real meat of teasing through the general scheme.

On the Department of Social Protection, there has been debate across the Government on that question. The backdrop is that the then health boards had minded a number of schemes that were not particularly health specific.

These schemes migrated to the Department of Social Protection. They were income support schemes for particular categories. They covered persons in receipt of domiciliary care allowance, the disabled person's maintenance allowance and income supports. The Department of Social Protection has certainly taken over a number of these. There would have been a debate on whether this scheme would be relevant in that regard. It is important that we finish the work we have taken on rather than trying to pass it across. It involves completing a legislative basis for a new scheme. When that work is done, it will be fair enough if somebody at Oireachtas or Government level questions who should administer the scheme, but I do not want to be distracted from trying to finish this part of the process by having to determine whether there is somebody else who should take it on. We have the ball and should get this over the line as quickly as we can.