Brian Hayes (Dublin South West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Amendments Nos. 6, 15, 17 and 18 are grouped. I move amendment No. 6:

In page 4, subsection (1), to delete lines 43 and 44 and in page 5, to delete lines 1 to 4.

This is one of the main issues that was raised in the consultation process that formed part of the regulatory impact assessment. I recognise the work of Deputies Fleming and McDonald who were part of that regulatory assessment. It has been some time since we met but the usefulness of going through all these major issues with a range of people in the construction area, big and small, was very good in teasing out some of the issues before we got to Committee Stage. I thank colleagues here and people in the industry for their involvement in that.

The regulatory impact assessment examined the experience of adjudication in other jurisdictions and found that the majority of disputes that used such processes were for contracts valued somewhere between €13,000 and €65,000. Therefore, the regulatory impact assessment concluded that these thresholds were too high and should be reviewed or removed. The amendment I am putting forward today removes the current thresholds in the Bill, which are €200,000 for private contracts and €50,000 for public contracts, and replaces them with a single contract threshold of €10,000.

There has been some confusion as to what the threshold will relate. The new threshold of €10,000 relates to the overall contract value. Therefore, subcontractors will be free to refer payment disputes relating to lesser amounts to adjudication. For example, if a contract with an overall value of €11,000 gives rise to a payment dispute of €1,000, this can form part of the adjudication process once the overall contract is more than €10,000. When Senator Quinn placed the Bill and put inserted those thresholds, he realised within a short time that the international experience is to have very limited thresholds so that this would apply to virtually everybody in the industry. We have done that by removing the €200,000 and €50,000 thresholds on public and private contracts and we have now a single threshold of €10,000. It is not that it applies to subcontractors with €10,000 or more. On the contrary, if the total value is in excess of €10,000, even though I have a dispute regarding a sum less than €10,000, I can seek adjudication on that. This is one of the major issues that came out of the arbitration process, the regulatory impact assessment and the Dáil debates. I gave a commitment that I would take action in this area and we are now responding.