Ruairi Quinn (Dublin South East, Labour)

I share the Deputy's view in principle. I can tell him that 258 individual responses from the public were received and they broke down as follows: 135 telephone communications, 103 written or e-mail submissions from individuals and 20 written submissions from different organisations.

The report on the consultation process within the Department is available on the Department's website but if the type of persons the Deputy is talking about have literacy problems they may experience difficulties getting access to the Internet. After so many years and with so many support groups having been in place, anybody could, and some have, gone to a solicitor seeking help from the original fund. There have been different avenues but we will continue to do all that we can to try to highlight this to ensure that nobody is left behind simply because they did not hear of it.

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