Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I would like to speak to the amendment. A decision on it has not been taken yet.

As the Minister and Deputy Kelleher would know, this is an area for which I do not have any great passion, but the Deputy makes a compelling case. I can understand the logic of the case he makes. I would not buy the Minister's view that this is either retrospective, arrears or back payments. People did not have a benefit when they did not have insurance. One cannot retrospectively apply entitlement. If one were to view it in the way that the Minister describes, should we then be able to claim for hospital costs that we incurred over the period of years that we did not have the cover?

I agree that, for people joining late, it would be a disincentive if the penalty were to apply for life. That simply would not be tenable. While it is Deputy Kelleher's call as to how he proposes to proceed with his amendment, there is no certainty in what the Minister says about looking at this issue in a review in the time to come. There is no guarantee that whoever may be looking at it will take a particular view. I would hope that common sense would apply if that were to be the approach and that the full evaluation would recognise that this would indeed be a disincentive to people joining late. So, I would like to support the case made by my colleague, Deputy Kelleher.