Mother and Baby Homes
Dail Éireann — 2026-04-23
============================================================

Norma Foley (FF), Kerry

Going back to the announcement in terms of the UK, I appreciate the point the Deputy raised on legislation. In that respect, we all accept that it takes some time to put legislation in place. In the interim, I particularly welcome, as I have referenced, the proactive step that has been taken in relation to guidelines.
I am aware that operational guidance has issued to Department for Work and Pensions staff on pensions, universal credit and housing benefit so that all deciding officers would be absolutely aware and would act in that respect. The Department for Work and Pensions as also issued guidance to local authorities, as they administer the housing benefits. I am hopeful that this will support increased numbers of applications from the United Kingdom.
I acknowledge that, whilst the legislation might be there, the guidelines are absolutely there. It should be a put through to encourage more to apply.
In terms of what is happening in other instances, the chief issue arose in terms of the UK but we continue our engagements with all of the diaspora.

---

Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted.

Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-04-23/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-27T06:54:48+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-04-23