This has been brought to my attention by Good Shepherd Cork, a charity based in Cork and one the Minister of State will be familiar with, that runs shelters such as Edel House, Shanaway House, and others. The issue primarily arises with children as it impacts on their ability to access school and other services. The emergency accommodation could be located far away and might not be proximate to the school. School transport is organised on the basis of routes. They are planned according to the number of children and…

I am not convinced by that. Will the Minister of State and his departmental officials meet with Good Shepherd Cork to explore the matter? The service supports families whose children have missed between 50 and 70 school days in an academic year. We have had debates on homelessness and talked about children doing their homework on a hotel bed or in a family hub. These are very challenging circumstances in which to raise a child. An added complication is that many of these accommodations do not have space for cars an…

People are going to be dispersed and they may be isolated. Surely something more flexible is needed.

Will the Minister of State or the officials meet with Good Shepherd Cork?

The Minister of State might take back the request for a meeting to the Department.

The Minister will be familiar with the issue of the widow's and widower's pension. There was a Supreme Court decision in January this year. On 18 June, the Minister said it was her intention to enact legislation before the Dáil recess and that a small amendment was required. That has not happened. I am looking for an update on the extension of the pension payment to non-married and cohabiting couples on account of the Supreme Court decision.

A substantial number of people are affected by this. There are 150,000 cohabiting couples in the State, 75,000 of whom have children. There are a number of questions. Treoir is one organisation which is raising these issues and the questions are as yet unsettled and require clarification. I hope it will be possible to get clarification on that. I will be able to come in again in a minute, so I will break my questions into two parts. My primary question is whether cohabiting couples without dependent children will b…

We do not have legislation yet; we have a general scheme. If we can get a better sense of when the legislation will come forward, that would be welcome. I appreciate that there are some technical details to be worked out, but the primary issue is which families will be eligible and how long people need to be cohabiting before they are entitled to the payment. If the Minister can answer those questions, that would be excellent. I know Treoir has been in touch with the Minister several times and has not received any …

I will keep it short and sweet. We had a lot of discussion about the Green Paper and all that went with it. The Minister correctly identified that there were shortcomings in the approach outlined, however well-intentioned. However, there is a cost to disability that has long been identified in various reports. We need to come back to how that can be addressed. How does the Minister now propose to proceed in that regard?

I thank the Minister. I do not have a whole lot to add at this time. During the process associated with the Green Paper, I never questioned the bona fides of the Department or its officials. It included a lot of well-motivated proposals. However, some of the concerns people had were well grounded, including those reflecting challenges that have arisen in other jurisdictions. It was the right decision to withdraw those proposals. In terms of our approach as we go forward, from what the Minister has said, it is at a …

The calculations the Minister has provided are quite considerable. What is the basis on which she is calculating the additional inflow? How much of an additional inflow would we be talking about for both the €800 million scenario and the €2 billion scenario? What is the kind of inflow that we would be looking at, according to her calculations?

The Minister will be familiar with this case. Mr. Matt McGranaghan is a musician. He successfully took a case to the scope section in respect of his status as being self-employed or not being self-employed. An appeal was lodged and it was successful. That found against Mr. McGranaghan, but subsequently, according to the Workplace Relations Commission, there were several examples of information provided during the appeal that were factually incorrect. That case is now on the Minister's desk. Does she intend to act o…

I thank the Minister. Has the decision by the chief appeals officer to review that decision been conveyed to the applicant, Mr. McGranaghan? I was not aware of that fact. Is it a recent development? In principle, it is vitally important that the Minister of the day is not setting aside appeals that are grounded in a process. It is important due process happens and so on. There is an issue, obviously, where an appeal decision is arrived at in good faith by the appeals office but which is based on facts that are not …

I may have to return to this matter. When was that decision to review arrived at? When did the review begin? This is the first I am aware of it. Where there are procedures, it is important the Minister cannot be deciding on 2 million or 20 million or however many cases or applications-----

Exactly. It is important the processes work and if they are not working that there is some mechanism to ensure they work. Obviously, when an appeal is found on facts which turn out not to be facts or to be fabricated, misrepresented or whatever, the decision of such an appeal has a questionable basis and it is important we have a mechanism to address that. I will have to consider the point the Minister has made in respect of the review. My request here had been for a judicial review because judicial reviews obvious…

Are there only a few minutes remaining?

Very well. I will skip to Question No. 4. I may return to Question No. 3 another day.

Does the Department of Social Protection use, or has it used in the past, test or sample cases when making decisions on individual applications or appeals?

The Minister spoke about the policy as it is now. In the social welfare appeals office decision 2022476, which is dated 20 January 2023, the appeals officer states that while test cases may have been used in the past, they were used in very specific and limited circumstances. That is not terribly long ago - it is about a year and a half ago. While the Department may not currently be using tester sample cases, it is clearly an acknowledgement they have been used in the past. When were test cases last used by the app…

I am sure this is not the Minister of State, Deputy Richmond's fault, but it was communicated to me that he would take it.