Catherine Ardagh (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I wish to make a brief observation. I agree with my colleague's sentiment that we should be narrowing the criteria for the State to be able to have access to employers' and employees' information, payslips and so forth. What plans would the Department have for such information? We should not go down the slippery slope of using it for the purpose of statistics for means testing child benefit. One might think that is a big jump but I can envisage the possibility of the information that is collected being used in an argument for means testing child benefit, whereby one could say that so many people earning X amount of money are also receiving child benefit. It should never be used for that purpose.