Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)

There was talk about putting it into legislation, starting from the beginning of next year. I have not seen the detail; the devil is always in the detail of these things. The concept is fine. I am not going to commit myself here to doing that because I will not introduce a scheme unless I believe it is robust. I understand the idea of the scheme is to facilitate participation in the workforce by those with a partial capacity who might at the moment find it very difficult to participate in the workforce. There is no expectation in the Department of major savings from this scheme. I hope to get the scheme in the very near future and that we would have an opportunity to discuss it and review it from every angle. I am sure there will be a significant input from people like the Deputy who have knowledge of this area to ensure we do not rush headlong into a scheme that does not work. On the other hand I do not want to delay matters indefinitely. I will be pressing that I will get the scheme very soon. I will review it and make my comments. I will be robust in my critique of it. We can then look at the best way to tease out how such a scheme might work. Sometimes schemes are introduced with one view and operate very differently on the ground because people see them in a different way from the way that the person who designed the scheme thought they would see them.

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