Paddy Burke (Fine Gael)

I am not confident to withdraw my amendment having heard the Minister of State's clarification. What I propose in my amendment is actual delivery rather than presumed delivery of the relevant notice. That section provides for presumed delivery.

The Government proposed to award a contract to person to sit in an office and post out summonses and that person will presume that his or her work is finished at that point. What is put forward is a proposal for inaction. We must be guaranteed that such summonses will be delivered. The Minister of State has not given me any comfort that will be done.

The current system, bad and all as it is, is nearly better than what is being proposed. The Minister of State has made no provision to instil confidence that such summonses will be delivered. The format of the delivery of such summonses should be included in the Bill, but there is nothing in what is proposed that gives me comfort in this regard.

Members on the far side of the Chamber have referred to cases — we are all familiar with such cases — where such offenders have not been fined or summonsed. This leads to ambiguity in the system. If we are to award contracts for the carrying out of this work and such ambiguity in the system continues to prevail, there will be a breakdown in the system.