David Stanton (Cork East, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

According to the amendment, "within 12 months of the enactment of this Part," this index should be prepared and so forth. We are saying that the legislation will be reviewed comprehensively at the five-year mark. That gives us a reasonable amount of time to assess how it is working.

Deputy O'Callaghan is right, in that this legislation is required as soon as possible. We need to get it on the Statute Book and working. If these amendments were accepted, we would have to consider them further, which would delay the legislation more. I am discussing the principle of the matter. For instance, there are technical issues, in that two indices are mentioned in amendment No. 5 and one would be used "along with" the other, but it does not say how that would be done. We would have to figure out the details of doing that because the amendment is vague. If there are two indices, does one take precedence over the other? If one shows a higher figure than the other, do we use the higher one or the lower one? What does "along with" mean? It does not mean anything to me. We would have to tease out the amendment, qualify it and decide whether, for example, the Minister would be empowered to make regulations as mentioned in the amendment and how they would be made. It is too vague.

Five years is a relatively short period of time, but it is long enough to determine how the legislation has operated. We will need that amount of time in any event. We saw what happened when the UK implemented a form of what the Deputies opposite are suggesting - it made matters worse. I call on colleagues to allow the Bill to operate as it is. The interdepartmental group has examined these suggestions from Second Stage speeches and taken them seriously, and it has come back with this advice. Let the legislation work for the five years. If it is not working at the end of that time, whichever Minister is here at that stage will be mandated to report back to the Houses and the committee and so on can make a decision on whether to change it. A great deal of work has gone into the Bill and we should allow it to continue.