The authorities may have got it wrong in fixing the weekly cash payment to asylum-seekers under the direct provision system at £15, an Oireachtas committee heard yesterday.
A Government official told the Joint Committee on Family Community and Social Affairs a working group was examining the payment to adults living in full-board accommodation, with services including laundry and food provided.
This group's report would be brought to the Cabinet, said Mr Brian O Raghallaigh, from the Department of Social Community and Family Affairs.
He was responding to questions from a Fine Gael TD, Mr Brian Hayes, who queried the legality of the £15 weekly payment introduced last April for newly-arrived asylum-seekers.
Mr Hayes said surely an asylum-seeker receiving the "paltry" payment could take a case against the State because it created a differential between citizens and asylum-seekers.
Mr O Raghallaigh said that, when the direct provision system was introduced last year, the £15 weekly payment was based on an analogous payment to people in long-term institutional care.
"We are absolutely certain that what we are doing is totally legal. We may have got it wrong with £15," he added.