Martin Heydon (Kildare South, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

When does the Minister expect the first decisions to be made? I accept that the entire process will take some months to complete and that it will be some time before the final payments are made. Difficult cases in which information must be provided will take longer to complete. Can some people expect to receive confirmation of decisions in January or February? Does the Minister expect a significant number of payments to be made in the early part of the year? I continue to ask about this issue because there is significant interest in it. Up to the point when letters arrived people probably doubted that anything was happening. It is important for them to be reassured that the payments will be backdated to March 2018. Will the Minister give a broad outline of when she thinks the first decisions will be made and how many cases will be processed in the first few months of 2019? I accept that 79,000 is a significant number of cases for the departmental officials to examine.

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