Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour) | Oireachtas source

As we build up experience of this we will be constantly reviewing it because it is a first for Ireland, and it is probably something that should apply in the medical area as well. The notion is that if people are paid compensation by compensators and they have already had some or all of their costs covered by the public purse, they should not in effect be paid twice and that the public purse should recover moneys that were advanced to fund the person while, perhaps over a relatively long period, an appeal on the level of compensation and so on is being decided. Clearly this issue of social welfare payments will have to be factored in to the consideration of the compensation awards by the individual, the compensator and the structures.