Regina Doherty (Meath East, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I am having déjà vu. This is probably the fourth time I have said this today in the House as I took oral questions from 10.30 a.m. An extensive report has been compiled by my officials over the last couple of months. It is absolutely nowhere near six months since this conversation came up in the House; it was just before Christmas, after the budget. I gave a commitment then to fix the issue and the anomaly in respect of the 42,000 people, 60% of whom are women and 40% men, who are currently disadvantaged by the changes that were made in 2012. The report is ready to go to Cabinet Committee A tomorrow afternoon. Pending proposals for acceptance or amendment at that committee meeting, or whatever the results of the meeting are, the report will be going to Cabinet on Tuesday and will be published thereafter.

I have said before and will say again that there is no money to reflect the changes that will be required in the 2018 budget. There will be new money needed to make the changes that will be required to fix the anomaly for the affected people. That will form part of the discussions over the coming weeks. I am not in a position to give any commitments on timelines.

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