Louise O'Reilly (Dublin Fingal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I move amendment No. 3:

In page 8, between lines 27 and 28, to insert the following:

“(2) It shall be necessary to provide proof that a notice or other document served on or given to a person under subsection (1) has been received by the person concerned.”.

This, again, is a technical amendment and I am hoping that the Minister of State will be able to put my mind at rest or, as he says himself, to allay my anxiety. I will be up all night worrying about it but it is something that is worthy of concern. As it stands the amendment states that: "It shall be necessary to provide proof that a notice or other document served on or given to a person under subsection (1) has been received by the person concerned". The amendment is included therefore as an addition to Section 5 to ensure that where notice has been provided under the section that the person cannot turn around and simply claim that they did not receive the notice. This is particularly pertinent for paragraphs (b) and (d) whereby the documents could be left at the address of the person concerned or sent by electronic means. In both cases a situation could possibly arise where the person concerned simply claims that they have not received the documents. I do not think that anyone, either myself or the Minister of State, want to find ourselves in a situation where we open the pages of a newspaper and we hear that such a person is in effect not covered by the provisions of the legislation because they simply say that they did not receive the documentation. The intention of this amendment is to tighten that up. Again, as with the previous amendments, I would welcome some comfort from the Minister of State on this point, please.