Michael McDowell (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I, too, thank the Minister for being present today. I am very glad this legislation has gone through the legislative process and has been passed. I fully accept its underlying logic. When I was in the Minister's position, it often occurred to me that such legislation should be passed. Curiously, in those days the insurance industry seemed to be the biggest opponent, for some reason. I believe it was afraid of it and preferred at the time to have a file marked as finished and completely dealt with. Obviously, circumstances have changed in the meantime.

When someone who is catastrophically injured gets his lump sum, it is supposed to do him for the rest of his life, so to speak. Sometimes, unfortunately, the individual dies very shortly thereafter and, under existing law, the fund itself is distributed among the individual's heirs or on intestacy. That will cease now. That makes perfect sense and I have no problem with that.It does strike me, however, and maybe this is a matter for another day, that while we compensate parents and siblings sometimes in the event of a death to the limit provided for in the Civil Liability Acts, whatever that limit is now, it is somewhat strange that somebody who is in that position will not get any compensation whatsoever for seeing his or her loved one, be it the husband, wife, son, mother or whoever, reduced to a catastrophically injured person and then dying subsequently. There is no compensation at all for that if it does not happen within the limitation period. Perhaps that is something that some law reform Minister will have to think about at some stage in the future. In the past the residue of the money frequently went to compensate the relatives, which was too much probably.