Martin Conway (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

This section is tidying up and enabling the HSE, when necessary, to be able to outsource. In a modern society and in doing business professionally, we should be able to at least remove the levers which prevent the HSE from doing things professionally and efficiently. This amendment is very important.

As the Minister of State quite correctly pointed out, people have had four years to apply for any backdating. There comes a point where one has to be sensible about things. The amendment is sensible. A period of 48 months has been available to people, which is a more than reasonable timeframe.

I welcome the commitment of the Minister of State to a continuous review of the scheme. Any good scheme is never perfect and will need to be tweaked. We could be presented with a different set of circumstances in two or three years' time and will have to react to them. It is very reasonable for an asset contribution to increase from 5% to 7.5%. Any fair-minded person or persons would have to acknowledge it is a modest increase in the overall scheme of things.