Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

That is an increase of 21,000 over last year. That is good news. There have been challenges with the scheme but the bottom line is that we did not hang around here. There was a cost-of-living crisis and we said we will move to reduce it for families and get rid of the fee, and we did. Of course, this created issues this September-----

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