Séamus Brennan (Dublin South, Fianna Fail)

I take the point. We will not go through it again. We had a good debate a few moments ago on the reasoning behind not making two payments. Deputy McCormack may wish to look at the transcripts of that debate. I will find another occasion to go through the matter with the Deputy if he wishes.

In reply to Deputy Boyle's question on the FIS, 17,445 people are currently in receipt of this payment. The number has been increasing. It is difficult to put an estimate on it but one guesstimate is that there may be another 20,000 people who are entitled to it. We have had a very good initial response to our advertising campaign. I will report to the House as soon as I have some numbers. I do expect the number to increase dramatically.

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