Séamus Brennan (Dublin South, Fianna Fail)

I provided an additional allocation in the 2005 budget of €2 million to enable us to press ahead with the new diet supplement. I have received the report to which the Senator referred. It is with the Department, and we have been considering it; we will continue to study it. We are pressing ahead with the diet supplement issue. The best assessment I can give the Senator of the timescale is that it will happen early in the new year. Diet supplements are subject to a means test, and the amount payable varies according to the several categories of diet prescribed by the applicant's medical adviser and the individual's income. The basis of calculation dates to 1996.

The report to which the Senator referred is from the Irish Nutrition and Dietetic Institute, which is doing some very good work seeking to establish what constitutes a standard, healthy, nutritional diet and how the cost of such a diet relates to the current rate of social welfare payments. The study examined the special diets currently prescribed in legislation that attract assistance in the form of a diet supplement and the appropriate level of assistance required to allow individuals to cater for any additional cost involved in providing for a special diet. It is intended to introduce the improvements to the diet supplement scheme at the earliest opportunity. It will certainly happen as early as possible in the new year.