Mr. Christopher Bowes:

That is the date set out in the judgment. As a matter of the requirements of the judgment, legally that date complies with the judgment. The Government is therefore entitled to set it there. Deputy Wall and organisations such as Treoir have brought up that people have been excluded in the past but because the O'Meara judgment was not in place at that time, it meant the definition of "qualified cohabitant" and "provision" were not in the legislation. The legislation does not provide for those people prior to the date of the O'Meara judgment in January 2024. It is something that is definitely worth examining from the Minister's perspective. As we said, the way the legislation is structured at the moment, it would look to us as if it would have to be dealt with through some sort of administrative scheme. I suppose it would be helpful if there were some clarity on what the Department's approach to that whole area will be as the legislation progresses.