Brendan Smith (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)

I move amendment No. 3:

In page 4, to delete lines 23 to 37 and substitute the following:

3.—Section 2(1) of the Act of 1994 is amended—

(a) by the insertion of the following definition:

"'Act of 2001' means the Health Insurance (Amendment) Act 2001;",

(b) in the definition of "health insurance contract" (inserted by section 2 of the Act of 2001), by the substitution of the following paragraph for paragraph (d):

"(d) a contract of insurance, or any other insurance arrangement, the purpose of which is to provide for the making of payments specifically for the reimbursement or discharge of fees or charges in respect of the provision of hospital in-patient services or relevant health services to persons or any dependants of any of them and one of the following conditions is satisfied—

(i) neither the said persons nor any such dependants are ordinarily resident in the State, or

(ii) where any of the persons to whom the said contract or arrangement relates are temporarily resident in the State during the subsistence of the said contract or arrangement—

(I) those persons are so resident solely for the purpose of carrying out their duties as employees, and

(II) those persons constitute not more than—

(A) 20 per cent of the total number of persons (other than dependants of them) to whom the said contract or arrangement relates, and

(B) 20 of the total number of persons employed in the State by the one person;", and

(c) by the insertion of the following definition:

"'in-patient indemnity payment' means any payment made pursuant to a health insurance contract by a registered undertaking for the purposes of reimbursing or discharging, in whole or in part, fees or charges in respect of the provision of hospital in-patient services.".

This is a technical amendment to insert a reference to the amending Act in the principal Act. Paragraph (b) substitutes the proposed text for paragraph (d) of the 2001 Act. The amendments to paragraph (d) of the definition of a health insurance contract passed on Committee Stage provided for the removal of a cumulative requirement currently contained in the exemption from the definition of a health insurance contract, and therefore the regulatory framework, for health insurance cover sold to persons moving from one country to another on a temporary basis. As some additional qualifications limiting the exemption to temporary stays for employment purposes are now being added to that subsection, it is considered better to substitute the subsection in its entirety. The principal changes are the removal of "domiciled" from (d)(i) and the addition of "solely" to (d)(ii)(I). Paragraph (c) reproduces the definition of an "in-patient indemnity payment" passed on Committee Stage.

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