David Cullinane (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the change which has been made. I have dealt with many retained firefighters in County Waterford who have found themselves in this situation. Due to an anomaly in the system, if a firefighter applied for a social welfare payment and the deciding officer determined that he or she was not available for work because of the rule requiring firefighters to live in close proximity to a fire station, he or she was not entitled to a payment. That created problems. I recognise that the provisions in the Bill represent a significant step forward, on which I commend the Minister. Many people in the Houses of the Oireachtas have raised the issue as a concern. I have received several phone calls welcoming the announcement that there would be a change. It is right to relay that to the Minister.

Amendment No. 6 is intended to deal with people whose claims are already in the system. It is important not to forget those people. I am not saying we need to go back decades or years but rather intend to address live applications and the fact that the change does not apply to them. The only way to apply the change for those applications is if the applicants apply again, which might be unfair. I am not sure we are being entirely flexible or taking the most pragmatic approach by rejecting the amendment. We are dealing here with a very small number of people. I received a letter from a firefighter who is in this situation and is making an appeal. It summed up the position of these people. He wrote:

I welcome the work done so far in relation to fire fighters and our social welfare claims and it is heartening to see the legislation progress through the House. It is with this in mind that I received notification this morning that my own claim is to be rejected again on the grounds of availability. This continues the trend of every single fire fighter's claim from the Birr fire station having been refused. This, as you are all aware, puts each and every fire fighter and his or her family under immense financial pressure for a period of up to seven months while the slow wheels of the appeals process move forward. What is even more disturbing is that the fact that this very same reason was put forward by the very same deciding officer last year and when it went to the appeals process, her decision was overturned. To put forward the same argument for a second year might be considered funny were it not so serious. This is obviously a huge disappointment to all of us in Birr who are only asking to be treated the same as the rest of our colleagues in Offaly and beyond.

Firefighters are making the point that there must be a change. They welcome the positive announcement which, unfortunately, does not apply to those whose applications are in the system. The Minister should take a more pragmatic approach and accept the amendment.