Richard Bruton (Dublin North Central, Fine Gael)

I am sorry, deductions. If we are breaking new legal ground, it is important that such measures be approved by both Houses of the Oireachtas before they are adopted. It seems to me, although I am not a lawyer, that it would give them more legal authority. I am sure the Minister will respond to this. It would seem advisable that the Oireachtas sees what is being proposed and vote for it positively. The intention, as the section is currently worded, is that such a proposal would be laid before the House and unless someone happens to table a Private Members' motion to annul it, it will remain intact. We should protect against any legal frailties which have been suggested to be present by having this sort of provision. It is also important that the House oversees the use of this power. That is a sensible thing to do.

When we spoke about these sections earlier, the Minister said they were qualified by section 2, inferring that only fees or services that gave rise to a pensionable payment could be treated in this way. I am not sure a reading of sections 9 and 10 makes that altogether clear. This has an important bearing on the Bill because when we discussed this earlier, the Minister gave me an assurance that people working as home helps would not be subjected to the levy because they do not have pensionable employment. However, they are in a contractual relationship with the HSE and they are delivering services. It would seem on a layman's reading of these sections that such people could be subjected to the levy in the same way as others. I hear beautiful, calming music — we should have that here all the time.

The other element of this amendment is that if we are amending contracts relating to fees — the Minister says we are doing this in the public interest, with all the citations he quoted at the beginning of the discussion — we must also give reasonable opportunity for people to put their side of the argument and have that assessed. I wonder whether the Minister should go further in providing a period of notice for consultation, as I have set out here, so that the provisions are seen to be robust. I did not follow the legal case, but was it not the case that last year a similar move by the HSE to put restrictions on the fees of chemists was found to be frail, and it was required to back off on that move?

I ask the Minister whether he would consider making this proposal more robust by implementing the sort of changes I have suggested. It also would be more practical and fair to people who need to plan their businesses, as it would enable them to have reasonable notice of what is coming down the track.

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