Brendan Smith (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)

This funding will amount to approximately €550 million. If one takes the coming January date, within ten months €988 million will have been paid out of a scheme that will cost the Exchequer in excess of €1 billion. This means that 90% of all eligible claimants will be paid by 3 January next. With the funding available this year we could have made a decision to pay more than 7,000 applicants their full payment. That would not be fair to other people who would receive no payment this year. The Government decided that payments should be made on a proportionate basis, namely, 40% to claims that are processed and cleared with immediate effect. Others will be paid 40% of their entitlement as they are cleared and passed during the year.

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