Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour)

The Deputy has a propensity for reducing both complicated and simple issues to black-and-white responses of "Yes" or "No"; it suits the narrative. I could give the Deputy 800 answers because this is the number of individual allowances, some of which fall into the category of core pay and others of which patently do not. When we have finished the review of over 800 individual allowances, we will be able to answer all the questions. It is taking some time to do that. That it is messy to review all the allowances because it has not been done before does not mean the review should not be undertaken.

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