John Paul Phelan (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I have a 17-page explanation, so I will try to distil some of the points. We are changing the numbering and ordering because we are inserting a new Part 3 dealing with financial arrangements consequential on the boundary alteration. This involves replacing section 17. There is a provision - I will try to find the exact reference to it - for indexation, or the time value of money, which is how I learned it. I will provide it to the Deputy when I find it.

We have made an effort to remove any potential route for litigation, but the contract debt provision remains as a precaution. It is a legal thing, as there must be some bottom line. We have tried to minimise its number of mentions. It is like a backstop, to use the hackneyed phrase. There has to be a final means by which that contribution can be recovered.

The measure on a review after three years has been removed in direct response to contributions on Second Stage, which many of the Deputies present made. They spoke about the potential impact of a review after three years. In our current proposal, the city council can effectively communicate with the Minister of the day the reasons it believes that the compensation should either be removed or, after an examination, reduced. It will be up to the Minister of the day to make that call. Galway City Council was established as a separate authority in 1985 and is still making payments to Galway County Council on a compensatory basis 33 years later. Like Deputy Ó Laoghaire, we felt that a mechanism at the ten-year mark whereby an application could be made to vary or drop the compensatory package was probably a fair balance between the original three-year provision and the suggestion of stretching the review period out further.

The reason Cork City Council is being allowed the flexibility to make the 2019 payments up to April 2020 is because a great deal of change will happen in the council in the next six or eight months and it will need a larger window than the normal calendar year to calculate and make the payments. It is an attempt by officials in the Custom House to recognise the difficulties that local officials will face in reaching that calculation.

In terms of indexation-----