David Cullinane (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I move amendment No. 7:

In page 14, between lines 34 and 35, to insert the following:

“(c) the value of any credited contributions assigned to an injured person as a result of the personal injury up to the date of the issuing of a statement of the recoverable benefits.”.

I wish to give some background information. As the Minister knows, when the courts calculate a compensation figure, they take into account lost earnings and how long a person has been out of work and subtract illness benefit. That is fair and my party supports the measure. The section? says that the insurance company or compensator should refund the State for the loss, with which we agree and which we welcome.

To improve the section we tabled the amendments having used the logic that the insuree or worker should suffer no loss. I am sure that the Minister agrees with that aim. We also need to protect their record and contributions during the period. We have a problem with the recovered money being viewed as credit contributions rather than paid contributions because of implications for certain social welfare entitlements down the road. That is one of the problems that we have with the system.

The potential anomaly could be resolved by the Minister's acceptance of the amendment or the thrust of the amendment. Amendment No. 7 seeks to allow the State to recover "the value of any credited contributions assigned to an injured person". The injured person should not suffer any loss. Allowing the Minister to recover the "credited contributions assigned to the injured person" from the compensator would allow her to turn them into paid contributions rather than credit contributions. I hope that she can follow my logic. The measure is important. Can she tell me how likely is that to happen? Potentially it will. We seek to improve what is a good section provided by the Minister.