Alex White (Dublin South, Labour) | Oireachtas source

No apologies arise.

I propose this technical amendment No. 2 to improve the construction of the existing text to address a possible ambiguity in the description of a single person as it appears in the Bill and under section 45A(3). In order to make the technical amendment to correct a conjunction in section 45A(3) in a clear and understandable manner, it is proposed to substitute the entirety of subsection 3(a) to (c) in the Bill. Under over-70s medical card legislation, a single person is a person who, first, is not married, second, is not living with another person as man and wife and, third, does not have a civil partner. Under the existing section 45A(3), as amended, and in the current Bill, a single person is identified to qualify for the single person's relevant income limit as a person who:

(I) is not married, and is not living together with another person as husband and wife, or

(II) does not have a civil partner

A possible ambiguity was identified in the description of a single person with regard to the use of the word "or" between subclauses (I) and (II) of the single person subparagraph, where it appears. To address any possible lack of clarity, the Attorney General has recommended that the "or" should be changed to an "and". This is purely a technical amendment. To avoid the conjunction "and" being repeated twice in subparagraph (i), the subparagraph is being divided into three separate clauses in order that the conjunction "and" is used only once. Consequently, the revised text will now read:

(i) if a person—(I) is not married,

(II) is not living together with another person as husband and wife, and

(III) does not have a civil partner

To help in understanding the new text, it is useful to read it as meaning that a single person is a person who is neither married nor living with someone as man and wife nor having a civil partner. Therefore, subparagraphs (a)(i), (b)(i) and (c)(i) of section 45A(3) of the Health Act 1970 are so amended. As a similar formulation of words is used to describe a couple a number of times in subsection 45A(3), it is necessary to mirror the same changes to "a couple" in subparagraphs (a)(ii), (b)(ii) and (c)(ii) of section 45A(3). The Attorney General has confirmed that the proposed amendment is purely technical in nature and since these are purely drafting amendments, I recommend their acceptance to the House.

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