David Cullinane (Waterford, Sinn Fein)
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That is exactly my point. We should have had that information last week. We asked for that last week. In fact, Deputy Shortall spent a long time trying to establish what the estimated figure for PPE was. She was told it was €118 million; as it turns out it was €151 million. I agree with the Minister, but it is now that we are getting the information which vindicates us sitting here again.

I want to get back to my questions. My third question relates to the pandemic bonus payment, a matter on which we also spent a lot of time. Nursing Homes Ireland received correspondence from KOSI Corporation stating that if they got their claims in by 11 November, people would be paid by 30 November. It stated that this delayed timeline is extremely disappointing and is yet another example of the failure of the Department of Health and the agency to properly plan for an efficient roll-out of the payment. I cannot disagree with that. How in God's name are we still here? We put a process in place where people would be paid through a self-assessment system and it still does not seem to be working.