I ask the Tánaiste if he will establish a cross-government initiative to tackle unclaimed entitlements. Revenue admits that PAYE workers have left €480 million behind them in unclaimed reliefs. I estimate that the total for unclaimed entitlements for expenditure programmes is far higher, at about €1.5 billion. This is an enormous sum, more than €2 billion altogether, and these funds have been left unclaimed mostly by the most vulnerable families. I will give the Tánaiste a few examples. We know there has been a take-up of only 3% for the new GP card entitlements, 3% as well for the carer's support grant and 35% for the rent relief. The biggest of all these schemes has seen a take-up of only 25% for the working family payment. A cross-government initiative is needed, therefore, to involve the Revenue and the spending Departments working collaboratively to identify the many vulnerable families missing out on significant entitlements.

The Deputy has been a consistent advocate in this area. The Revenue is engaged in an awareness programme around people's entitlements and what they can claim. I will certainly talk to various Ministers to see whether it is worthwhile putting a cross-departmental-----

I think it will take more than just issuing-----

What happens sometimes is that there can be an overestimation of what Departments might think would be the expenditure of a given programme. For example, we would argue that the expenditure for rent relief may have been overestimated. On another level, there is a lower take-up, although there might be other reasons for this situation. I take the Deputy's point that we must examine it. The problem here is that we need informed decision-making. If we are told on one level that if we bring in a tax relief it is going to cost X and the reality turns out to be much different, then there is an issue.

I will send the Tánaiste a few examples to encourage him.

Perhaps the one Department that might want to sit on it, but we might think about it, would be the Department of Public Expenditure, National Development Plan Delivery and Reform. I am not so sure it would be so enthusiastic about the idea that we would encourage people to take up all their expenditure entitlements.