Clare Daly (Dublin Fingal, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I do not accept what the Minister of State says. What we are talking about is exactly what the judicial working group recommended. It pointed out that the harmonised index of consumer prices as published by the CSO does not make any special provision for an index of care costs, which is the essential component in dividing any such periodic payments. The most costly elements, which must be tracked most closely, are the wages and care costs. I cite the Department of Finance's paper, which dealt with this issue and considered the potential of the quarterly earnings, hours and employment costs survey published by the CSO. This measures hourly and weekly earnings of all employees in enterprises of over 50 employees and a sample of employees in smaller enterprises. The paper by the Department of Finance stated that over the longer term, this index would give the best outcome for recipients.

I do not accept what the Minister of State is saying to the effect that what we have put forward is some airy-fairy, unsubstantiated thing that could not be calculated. It is the opposite. What we are putting forward was unanimously recommended by the judicial group on medical negligence. I remind the Minister of State that what we are trying to do here is deal with the care needs of people who have been catastrophically injured by our health service providers, by providing for the option of moving away from lump sum payments to payments made on a more sustained and better basis. The Minister of State is right in saying that to do so, we need certainty. Our amendments are providing for certainty because they factor in the wage and health costs. We are deferring to the superior input of the judicial working group and our Department of Finance mandarins.

The Minister of State is saying that it is beyond the capacity of the Minister for Justice and Equality to come up with a revised indexation scheme. I do not accept that. It has been clearly defined for the Minister of State. If we do not put this in, there might never be a review. There was supposed to be a review of the residential institutions statutory fund after two years.

We still have not seen it. There is no mandate to change it. There is nothing in this amendment to be feared. It gives certainty and I am keen to press ahead with it.