Paul Gavan (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I appreciate that clarity. I will move on to the key thing I want to say. This is important because I put a set of questions to the Minister in my previous contribution. With the greatest respect, he ignored them. I do not mind him ignoring me, but I suspect there are quite a number of people watching in this afternoon. They still have key questions which to date have not been answered. I ask him, please, for the courtesy of an answer - not for me, but for them. I have one key question. Why has the Minister decided to exclude 24,000 people on the arbitrary ruling of a six-month date? I need to understand that, but they need to understand that. They need to hear that. They are entitled to an answer on that and this is our last opportunity to get those answers.

Second, and these are referenced in the amendments, so that is why I am entitled to ask these questions, why has the Minister excluded the 4,800 people who were boarded out? What is the rationale? Is it based on finance, as has been suggested? How does the Minister justify setting up different tiers or different classes of victims or survivors? Out of pure courtesy, but also because it is central to everything we have been debating, I ask the Minister to please give us a direct answer to these questions.