John Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)

This amendment seeks to spread out the payment of the discounted buy-out figure over a much longer time. The scheme will be available for a defined period and if this amendment was to be accepted, it would enable annuitants to accept the scheme and then defer part of the payment until after the scheme was closed. This would seriously undermine the Bill's intended purpose, namely, a closure on the collection of land purchase annuities, and would in effect bring about a situation where annuitants could prolong the final payment without any sanctions for long periods. The entire concept behind the Bill was to bring closure to the scheme. As it stands, the scheme offers what amounts to a discount of 25% of what is actually owed. In itself, this is a substantial benefit to annuitants and I oppose this amendment.

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