Ms Dara Breathnach:

It is a little bit complicated, as these things often are. There had been a long-standing procedure whereby all payments which were made under the insolvency payment scheme, which include WRC and Labour Court awards, were then calculated by reference to the proportion of the cap to the normal weekly wage, where that normal weekly which exceeded €600 per week. There was then a specific case, the Brady case, which, because the award was not explicitly linked to the salary level, the cap was applied and the person applied to the courts. The High Court found that the cap had been incorrectly applied on the basis that it was not explicitly linked to the salary level. Some of our provision here is to restore that link, even where the award itself does not explicitly link it to the salary level, because the alternative is that there could be two people on exactly the same salary, in exactly the same circumstances, where one award explicitly makes reference to the salary and to compensation in those terms, which is subject to the cap, and the other one does not. It is purely down to the detailed wording of a particular adjudication. We believe this is very unfair and that, therefore, there should be a universality where one is looking at applying the cap.