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

I was not aware the Deputy was going to raise a particular issue around the Part 8 form and it was not in his original question. Accordingly, I am not in a position to answer directly today. However, we are obviously going to need some sort of mechanism to find out how many hours somebody worked. That is the basis to the payment. The Deputy suggested we replace the Part 8 form. With what does he suggest we replace it? We need some mechanism to find out how many hours someone worked and what he or she earned.

I got agreement at Cabinet today on beginning the public consultation for the new working family payment. As the Deputy knows, the programme for Government commits to the introduction of a working family payment to reduce child poverty and ensure families are not better off on welfare than in work. There are several ways in which we support working families with the cost of living such as child benefit, the increase for the dependent child and, of course, family income supplement, FIS. There is also the development of this new payment, which could be an additional payment to these or one to replace all of these, and is an opportunity to reform the whole system.

We need to have that information, however. I do not believe getting rid of the form would assist us in getting the information we are not getting.

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