Seán Sherlock (Cork East, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I share a similar view to Deputy Funchion about the application process. I do not know if the Minister has ever spent time with a constituent filling out a medical card, invalidity pension, disability allowance, pension, community welfare allowance, supplementary welfare allowance or any other such application form, but it is quite an onerous task. I still do not understand why he is putting a sunset on the application process. I am interested in what the Minister said about the potential, if I understood him correctly, for 34,000 applications, or that the Department is asking for provision for 34,000 applications approximately. I worry less about the people in this jurisdiction than about the people outside of it who may reside in the United Kingdom, for example. I worry that they may get locked out of the system and it will become far more onerous for them to make an application if they are one step removed from the State. They will not necessarily have access to the information or perhaps to a deciding officer in the same way as someone who resides in the State may have. On the subject of the potential for 34,000 applications, the question also arises as to whether the scheme will be adequately and comprehensively advertised to people who are not resident in this State.

It is a fair assumption to make that many people who would be eligible for the scheme are resident in the United Kingdom, the United States of America or elsewhere. They may not even be aware this legislation is before us as we speak. The Minister may argue we are being quite pedantic about it but I believe what we want is a scheme that is generous in its constitution and how it is made up. It needs to be as seamless as possible. It needs to cause no trauma or put in place any impediment to people who are applying.

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