Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, Socialist Party) | Oireachtas source

The Minister was so happy about registration levels that he said it was, all of a sudden, a soft deadline. Senator Lorraine Higgins famously declared on "Morning Ireland" that it was not a "drop dead" deadline. Such is the level of success in the Minister's registration rates that he has now gone for a fourth deadline. I do not think this speaks to his confidence in the level of registration.

If it is not going to be punitive, does the Minister agree that there should be no discrimination against tenants and no ability to rob money from their deposits which clearly are paid for a particular purpose? There are cases of tenants being bullied into registering to pay water charges. Will the Minister make it very clear that no tenant should face punitive action from his or her landlord? Any threat of eviction, for example, would be entirely wrong in a case of non-registration by a tenant. That is a matter between the tenant and Irish Water. If there will be no penalties until July 2016, they can safely and comfortably join the boycott.

See this speech in context