Roderic O'Gorman (Dublin West, Green Party)

I thank the Deputy very much. The review must be completed by mid-2026. That will give a span of time through which the scheme has been operating. There will also be a stronger sense then of the level of uptake of the scheme. We were expecting a surge of applications at the start, in the way we had seen with the birth information and tracing legislation, but it is now clear that the level of applications will be more gradual. We will have a better understanding of the number of applications in late 2025 and early 2026.

It would be wrong for me to speculate what the Minister of the day will make a call on, in terms of the ambit of the scheme, but we designed the legislation in such a way as to list the various points which it allows the review to encompass. We put in a provision to allow the Minister of the day to make a decision and add additional points of consideration as well. There is flexibility for the Minister of the day in terms of designing the remit of the review.

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