Frances Fitzgerald (Fine Gael)

My concern is that it is a closed system. There appears to be no provision in the Bill for independent review. We propose that a financial review, for example, should be conducted by an independent third party so a fair and reliable estimate could be established in which both the applicant and the HSE could have faith. An important way of doing that is to insert independence into the scheme. That is the reason we propose these amendments. The HSE is a big organisation. It would be in the person's interest to be able to access and use independent advice on the variety of issues that arise under this legislation, whether it is to estimate the market value of an item or to review it. There should be an opportunity to do that under the legislation. If it is not built in as part of the process, there should be some discretionary opportunity to access independent review to a greater extent than is available.