Feargal Quinn (Independent)

What is covered in the Bill is exactly as Senator Coghlan has said. It is perhaps not what was intended at the beginning. The intention was to cover as much as we could. Senator O'Malley said she is disappointed that materials are not included in it. We recognised very early on that we could not do everything. What I set out to do was to have a certainty of timing of payments, a certainty of the amount of payments, a certainty of the enforcement whereby could one ensure one would get paid rather than just know that someone owed one money and one was not able to get it, and a certainty that the cash is secure. The other aspect I wanted included was that if a dispute arose, a resolution could be found.

We have gone a way long towards dealing with most of those aspects but we have not yet managed to find a way to ensure the cash is secure - security of cash - although it is still possible that a way could be found to ensure that by the time the Bill gets through the Dáil. Officials in the Department of Finance and in the Attorney General's office have been working very hard to find a solution to that but it is not easy to find. Rather than delay the passage of the Bill any more, the fact that we are not achieving all four certainties but only part of them is still a better step forward. I was hoping for 100% and I have got something less than that, but even if it is only 80%, 70% or 40%, it is still a step in the right direction to help those subcontractors who have lost out on that basis. I understand the concerns of Senators Mooney and O'Malley in regard to those particular areas but this Bill aims at achieving as much as we can at this stage.

Senator Mary White raised the very understandable point about materials made specifically for a project. She referred to the Terminal 2 project and that people who did work on it are concerned. Parts of the materials used in that building were made specifically for it. They were not off-the-shelf equipment. One could understand on that basis the intention would be to have such materials included. The debate on that can continue but at present such provision has not been included in this legislation. What we have included is anything that is made and installed by the same maker. On that basis, that aspect will be included but materials that are what one could call off the shelf are not included.