Mary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)

I agree with everything the three Senators have said. The Minister for Finance would be favourably disposed towards such a move. However, Senator White put his finger on the issue in that there may be a need for legislation, regulations or, at least, rules of court to allow periodic payments to be made. The President of the High Court has already asked Mr. Justice Quirke to establish and chair a medical negligence working group to consider this exact issue. However, it would be premature to introduce a tax exemption before the legislation was actually introduced. The group is due to report by the end of November. If this was approved - we would all accept all of the arguments the Senators have made - the legislation, regulations or rules of court would immediately follow and the Minster for Finance would hope to be in a position to introduce the tax exemption at that stage.