Aengus Ó Snodaigh (Dublin South Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I move amendment No. 19:

In page 14, between lines 34 and 35, to insert the following:“(c) the value of any credited contributions assigned to an injured person as a result of the personal injury up to the date of the issuing of a statement of the recoverable benefits.”.

I will try to be brief but I have tabled several amendments and I want to raise some of my concerns about this section.

The amendments are practical ones. I do not have a problem with the proposal to recover benefit from those who have gained compensation. I have also suggested recovering benefits from the Employment Appeals Tribunal from the companies which lose there. I hope that in future the Minister will consider that suggestion. We estimate that a substantial sum of money is lost to the Exchequer in those instances. I want to ensure that the injured person receives the benefit of the value of any credited contributions assigned to an injured person and that it is not ignored.

Amendment No. 21 covers circumstances where the compensator has already made a reduced award. There are times when the Department makes mistakes such as a miscalculation of the size of the benefits claimed or received in that period. The section allows for this but suggests that the State would then return the value of that to the compensator, in this case, the business, rather than to the person who is at a loss, in the hope that the business would transfer it back to that person. That is the intention of amendment No. 21. There is not enough time to deal with the technicalities. If we were sitting in the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Education and Social Protection I would probably be able to explain this in greater detail, with examples. Other people want to speak on these matters.

The Free Legal Advice Centres, FLAC, raised concerns about this in their submission. I thank it for submitting it despite the short time between the publication of the Bill and this discussion. When a statement of recoverable benefits is issued, a copy but not the original is sent to the person receiving the benefit and the original goes to the compensator. Does the compensator have the first right of appeal? Somebody in possession of the original document has first right of appeal. That is a practical question. Does the first right of appeal belong to the social welfare recipient? The denial of a right of appeal until the Minister has been fully paid is also in breach of fair procedure and needs to be considered. Cases may arise where there has been a mistake made in the statement, for example, if the Department states that a person was on benefit for four years and was in fact only on benefit for two years. A certificate arising from such a mistake cannot be appealed, which is also a mistake. All such decisions should be appealable and those rights are not granted in this instance. I regret the lack of time to discuss these questions.

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