Jerry Buttimer (Fine Gael)

Once again, there is confusion and a lack of clarity. The Minister speaks about aligning it with taxation, which is fair enough, but my fundamental difficulty is that this comes into operation on 1 January 2010. Today is 16 December. If the Bill is passed and signed into law when will it come into effect? My point is that between 22 or 23 December to 4 January everything is shut administratively and people switch off. Then we get to the first week of January when it is too late and, as the Minister is aware, there may or may not be a flood of people coming into social welfare and community welfare offices and all they will be told is that the legislation specified 1 January 2010.

I am not a mathematician and I get confused about social welfare. I appeal to the Minister to allow for an awareness campaign on the changes that will occur when this Bill comes into effect. With the best will in the world, people will not understand it and there will be absolute chaos after 1 January. Can we extend the deadline to give people a transition period? People will be lost in the holidays during the next two weeks. I ask the Minister to allow people a period of grace.