Wednesday 11^th November in the Oireachtas.

Question: Richard O'Donoghue (Limerick County, Independent)

First, for people who qualified for a primary medical certificate before the Supreme Court judgment in June of this year and who are upgrading their vehicles, are they still entitled to the VRT payment or has that been restricted? Second, with regard to the cost of the Supreme Court judgment, has it cleared the backlog of people waiting for their primary medical certificates?

Answer: Micheál Martin (Taoiseach, Department of An Taoiseach; Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)

The Government has given approval to the Minister for Finance and he will be bringing forward amendments, as I understand it. He will clarify and confirm this in the Finance Bill. The amendments will deal with that judgment in order to, in the first instance, enable current applications that are delayed to be dealt with expeditiously and quickly. Then, outside of that, he is undertaking a review of the entire scheme to see if it is fit for purpose in terms of its restrictive nature at the moment, and whether it can be improved as a scheme. Therefore, there are two strands to this.