Michael McCarthy (Labour)

I appreciate the Minister's reply. He illustrated an example of the spirit of this amendment. It never ceases to amaze me that there is a large group of people who do not understand the PRSI codification system, and I would include public representatives in that. For example, there are persons who up until the budget would not have realised that their PRSI contributions would have covered dental and optical benefit. They did not realise it until it was gone.

There is a disconnection in terms of the perception of the categories of PRSI, for example, among persons who move employment. The majority of those in this House would have moved onto a different class of PRSI when they became Members of the Oireachtas and would have lost some of the benefits that their previous PRSI contribution, if they were in PAYE employment, would have conferred upon them.

In that macro-sense, when the Minister is looking at the system, it needs to be made understandable to the ordinary individual, never mind the practitioners of politics or others who will be using that system to explain cases and deliver a process or a procedure in a particular Department. It is also important that there is a strong understanding of that.

I remember a number of years ago when the Tánaiste, Deputy Coughlan, was Minister in this Department, she was looking at that in terms of jargon busting and using terms that were easy for persons to decipher and understand in terms of communicating.

A number of years ago, the workload of a public representative, as the Minister, Deputy Ó Cuív, would have realised in Galway, would have been one-off rural housing and the planning difficulties associated with it being a political hot potato, whereas now the majority of us spend our time working in the social welfare system for those who, unfortunately, find themselves signing on and making inquiries about entitlements. It is a difficult system to gain a commanding brief of, from our point of view not to mind that of the ordinary individual or customer to whom the Department would seek to provide the service. It is important in the context of the manner in which the Minister looks at the PRSI codification system that it is made easier for everyone to understand, not least those to whom Department would wish to offer a service.