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

The Department is not employing any blanket certification currently. Deputy Brady will see in every single local and regional newspaper throughout the country that we have spent a significant amount of money to inform people as to when their payments will be made over the Christmas period. There will be no changes to effective illness benefit whatsoever. People who get paid on a Monday will be paid on a Monday, and it will be the same for those paid on a Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday. There is no blanket certification.

I am not sure what Deputy Byrne means by his claim. The 9,000 certificates we receive every single day come in on the new forms. There are some old forms still in existence in our GP services. We have agreed with our GPs that claims on these forms will still be paid until all of those old forms are exhausted and they move on to the new forms. For the record of the House I will say for the third time that the IMO and the Department successfully concluded negotiations last week. I look forward to a continued prosperous relationship between the two.

See this speech in context