Dan Boyle (Cork South Central, Green Party)

Even if the Minister's most recent initiative is successful, and the trend seems to be where he and his officials hoped it would end up, we are still talking of between 30% and 40% of the people who might be entitled to family income supplement not receiving it. Because of the success of the initiative, I presume the Minister will have to introduce a Supplementary Estimate to the House, because his way of recording family income supplement in the budget is to rely on last year's figures and repeat that for the following year. If more people are being paid it, I presume we will have to take account of that in this House.

One particular anomaly I have experienced relates to family income supplement being paid largely to the woman in the family, with the woman being involved in casual employment. This follows through on the point that Deputy Penrose made. The assessment of the working hours is over such a short time period and the nature of casual employment might mean that a person working with a supermarket chain, for example, might be working 16 hours one week and 24 hours the next week, with work on a Sunday sometimes counting as time and a half in terms of income but counted only in hours in the given week because of the use of the employment by the employer. Will the Minister accept that such anomalies make it difficult for people to apply for family income supplement? Moreover, while being assessed after having made an application, such people often find themselves turned down needlessly.

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