John Curran (Dublin Mid West, Fianna Fail)

As we have discussed, the Bill, as drafted, represents an interim response to the McCann judgment. The draft legislation replaces section 6 of the 1940 Act with a carefully balanced range of safeguards and protections designed to take account of all the principles raised in the High Court. The Bill should be seen in that light. It is only three weeks yesterday since the High Court delivered judgment in the case and the Government was keen to have a reliable interim solution as the Law Reform Commission's deliberations, while relatively well balanced, will take some time to come to fruition. We will be returning to this legislation in due course.

Specifically, the proposal to include a provision to attach earnings raised by Deputy Flanagan was debated extensively in the Seanad where I participated and listened with great care to the detail. To answer the Deputy directly, I have considered it. However, as this is an interim arrangement to deal with a specific issue that arose in the McCann judgment and given also that the Law Reform Commission will be reporting in due course, we will not proceed with the attachment at this point in time.

There are one or two other points I want to make, and I want to be specific and clear. The aim of the Bill is to ensure - this is a key point because sometimes outside of this Chamber there can be a little confusion - that people who cannot afford to pay will not be subject to imprisonment but those who can but who simply choose not to, will still face the possibility of prison. That is explicit in the new subsection (8)(a) to section 6 of the 1940 Act which states, "the failure to pay the sum in respect of which the debtor has made default is not due to his or her mere inability to pay but is due to his or her wilful refusal or culpable neglect". We make a very specific distinction in the legislation between the ability and inability to pay. The Minister indicated it is not the norm for people to be imprisoned and only a small number are imprisoned for refusing to pay. With regard to family law cases, which represent a sizeable proportion of these types of cases, attachment is a well-established practice and it may be possible to formulate another model along those lines. It is worth noting that approximately half those imprisoned at any given time are maintenance debtors in respect of whom the option of attachment is already available. Bearing in mind the proposals of the Law Reform Commission, we need to explore this further. I am not accepting the amendment but we are certainly open to a full review of the findings of the commission, which I understand will be available before the autumn.

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