Séamus Brennan (Dublin South, Fianna Fail)

As the Deputy is aware, the qualifying period was six months and I increased it to 12 months in the budget. I have said consistently since then that it does not come into effect until September and that well in advance of September I will finalise my thinking on that, particularly in terms of sourcing the additional funding. The timescale is fine. It is nothing different from what I have been saying for some months. This is only April and well in advance of September we will be able to close our thinking on whether we can move the qualifying period back to nine months.

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