Seymour Crawford (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)

Absolutely. Those who went first to the Minister of State, Deputy Brendan Smith, and then came to me are still in trouble. Those are the simple facts.

There are people in grave difficulty and I wrote to the Minister directly before Christmas regarding at least two individuals in dire straits. It is not funny. While it may be gratifying to emphasise that 99.9% of people have been paid, if the Minister of State were among a small number of Deputies not to have received last year's salary, she would not be happy either. I would like to have elicited the figures for 2006. Will the Minister consider making personnel available in such difficult circumstances to deal with matters?

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