Dara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I congratulate the Deputy on his election to this House. I look forward to working with him.

The State has always distinguished in a number of its laws between the rights of couples whose relationship is formalised in a marriage or civil partnership and the rights of other couples whose relationship is not formally registered. There was a backdrop to that in regard to succession, property rights and taxation. Since the Supreme Court judgment, we have been reflecting on the changes we need to make. We prioritised the drafting of necessary legislation, which underwent pre-legislative scrutiny by the previous joint Oireachtas committee on social protection. As I said, we will imminently bring a Bill to the Government. I will keep in touch with all Deputies in this regard. I acknowledge the work of Deputy Kelly in this area.

On the Deputy's specific query, we currently have 331 applications on hand. As we have just discussed, it is proposed within the general scheme of the Bill that payments will be backdated to the date of the judgment in January 2024 or, if later, the date of death.

The specific number of claims we have at present is 331.

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