Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I very much take the points on board. If a detailed report is to be produced at all on the changes made over the years to the one-parent family payment, it might as well be produced sooner rather than later. We might as well have it in good time, well before the next summer recess, so we can all consider it. I would rather have it produced also. The difficulty I have is the advice from my officials. Since we are writing this into legislation, the production of the report becomes a legal obligation. If the report is produced independently, there has to be a tender evaluation committee within the Department for a specific tender. That work has started already so we have not waited. A request for tenders has to be published, possibly on the e-Tenders website. Appropriate time must be given for the interested bodies to submit their tenders. Tenders must be assessed in order to ensure the most suitable submission is selected. Then comes the awarding of the contract. Those who get the contract need to be given sufficient time to do the work.

Since the production of the report is being written into legislation, a maximum timeframe is being set out. The process is to be well under way within three months and the report is to be available and published within nine. That is not the target time but the maximum time permitted by the legislation. I am happy to remind the Deputies that we have already started the work. We commit to doing it in a much shorter timeframe than envisaged. We hope to have the job out to tender before Christmas with a view to having the work done in a timely fashion. It is then up to the individual. I do not see why he or she would not have it done by May or June to give us time to consider it before the summer recess.

That we are writing this into legislation creates a complication because we would be in breach of legislation if something went wrong. That is why the timeframes are included. I hope Deputies will take my word for the fact that the times we are including in the legislation are maximum times, not target times or intended times.

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