Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour) | Oireachtas source

Will the Minister of State give us a copy of his detailed note because we only recently received information about this amendment? It has been customary for Ministers for Finance to provide detailed notes if Members request them. We received the text of the amendment at short notice. This is potentially a very big change. Did the Attorney General give advice on it? It is a very overt direction to a court. If, for instance, an honest claimant is caught out by the proposed change, does he or she have a mechanism to appeal what is becoming an automatic process which the Minister is trying to impose on the court? If we could get the detailed note, we could get advice on it.

What mechanisms, if any, does the Minister of State have in mind to ensure that honest claimants do not lose out? The vast majority of people are honest. We all have a problem with fraudulent claims and we are united in wanting to stamp them out, but this is a big step up and we did not hear much about it beforehand. We were handed copies of the proposed amendment the other day. I would like more detailed information from the Minister of State. Will he outline what will happen to an honest claimant who, for whatever reason, does not meet the one month deadline? What recourse, if any, will he or she have? Usually in such cases there is an inbuilt system akin to an appeals mechanism which would allow someone to seek a remedy if, for some reason, it was not possible to comply with the regulation.