Conor Lenihan (Dublin South West, Fianna Fail)

It three to four months for individuals and seven to eight months for employers, which is a significant delay. While we are widening the eligibility for the employment subsidy scheme, we are doing so because of the experience we have had to date. It would have been foolish and very dangerous for the Government to put in place an employment subsidy scheme which from the outset was open to abuse or could be constructed in such a fashion that the wrong types of employers were drawing down the benefit to the exclusion of those.

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