Brendan Ryan (Labour)

The House should read section 17 which states:

(1) Where it comes to the knowledge of the scheme administrator that—

(a) all or part of the payment of a prescribed repayment to a person has been procured through fraud or misrepresentation, or

(b) there has been an overpayment of a prescribed repayment to, or in respect of, a person, then the scheme administrator shall make a report thereon to the Executive.

(2) Where it comes to the knowledge of the Executive . . . then the amount of that prescribed repayment so procured, or of that overpayment, as the case may be, shall be repayable to the Executive on demand . . .

In this instance the State does not delay or say it needs a reasonable time to administer or investigate the repayment. When the executive discovers that somebody owes it money because of a mistake under this scheme it wants the money back immediately. When somebody whose money has been taken by the State makes an application it will not consider any deadline, whereas in the converse situation the State wants the money back on demand or it will bring the person to court.

That is the content of section 17 which is an example of the way the State, in my 25 years here, has consistently believed that there is one rule for the people from whom it wants something and another when people want something from it. This Bill would have been a wonderful opportunity for the State to say it must deal with the issue efficiently. I thought the objective of privatising the service was to give people efficiency but what we will get is the worst kind of public sector obscurantism, without any attempt to make the State accountable. Section 17 says it all.