It is almost one year since a final settlement was reached between the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, the Minister for Social Protection, and the unions representing community employment, CE, supervisors and assistant supervisors. I submitted a parliamentary question last week asking whether the ex gratia payment which was agreed upon would be paid to these CE workers. The answer I received stated that discussions regarding this are ongoing. However, I know that some CE workers have already been paid the ex gratia payment while others are still waiting, a year later. It is not acceptable to have people waiting this long to receive a payment, especially during such a crippling cost-of-living crisis. This demonstrates complete disrespect for CE workers and for the unions that represent them. What is the real reason that many community employment supervisors, including in my constituency of Donegal, have not been paid? Can these people be guaranteed that this payment will be made within the next couple of weeks?

Under the terms of the settlement that we agreed with the unions late last year on reaching retirement age, eligible CE supervisors and assistant supervisors will receive a once-off ex gratia payment in respect of time employed in the CE scheme since 2008.

People who have retired since 2008, who have reached retirement age, are now eligible to apply for the payment. In recent months, an administrative and ICT system to accept applications and process payments has been put in place in the Department. We wrote to approximately 720 ex-supervisors who had retired since 2008 and we received approximately 664 applications. Some 134 are ready to issue and 430 are being processed. The Department of Public Expenditure and Reform has questioned the timing of the payments. We wrote back to the Department to let it know that we are ready to issue the payments and we await feedback in that regard. I reassure the Deputy that the money is there and it is ready to be issued, but in short a technicality in the administrative process has arisen that we want to iron out as soon as possible.