Louise O'Reilly (Dublin Fingal West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

With regard to backdating, my concern is not just in respect of the case taken by John O'Meara. There are cases in the system that predate the judgment. Will the Minister give some consideration to those people, as well as people who are experiencing issues on an individual basis? I do not imagine the numbers will be huge. However, we have seen a large increase in the number of cohabiting couples. This issue needs to be fixed for the future. I imagine that, looking back, we are not talking about a huge number of people, but we could be talking about an awful lot of hardship. I understand the logic of backdating to the date of the judgment but there will be cases that are in the system and it would not be fair to those people to tell them they must go all the way to the Supreme Court to get the backdating. Some consideration might be given to setting up a high-level group to troubleshoot those cases, all of which will be individual. I genuinely do not think we will be looking at large numbers. However, we are talking about people who have suffered real and extreme hardship. As the Minister said, grief does not discriminate. These people were bereaved and they found themselves on the wrong side of a law that was very unequal and unfair.

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