I want to ask the Minister for Social Protection to address an anomaly and a serious matter. The disability equality (miscellaneous provisions) Bill is required to allow ratification of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and to make further technical amendments to disability and equality law. I am seeking to highlight the denial of disability payments to our own citizens when they go abroad for treatment. I am thinking specifically of the case of a young man who has had to leave his children behind. His wife has gone with him. It is very wrong that he is being denied his disability payments because he is outside the country. He is sleeping for 22 hours. At a time when we are giving over €600 million in foreign aid, which is being administered by dictators who are buying guns with it, it would be appropriate for this man and people like him to get disability payments when they are abroad.

I will answer the first part of the Deputy's question and ask the Minister, Deputy Varadkar, to answer the second part of it in accordance with the new procedures. It is absolutely the Government's intention that by the end of this year, it will be able to adhere fully to all of the conditions of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and thereby be in a position to sign it. Several pieces of legislation will need to be enacted to ensure Ireland complies fully with the UN convention. We will be in a position to do that. The Minister of State, Deputy Finian McGrath, is pursuing it.

There is no legislation pending on the particular matter raised by Deputy Danny Healy-Rae. Ordinarily, social welfare payments are paid only to those who are habitually resident in the State. However, if people are absent from the State for a short period of time, it can be possible to continue those payments. If the Deputy would like to give me the details of the particular case to which he refers, I will examine them. If legislation is needed to facilitate a change for legitimate purposes, that could be considered as part of the social welfare Bill later in the year.