Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour) | Oireachtas source

The most recent CSO figures show that, thankfully, a lot of people are going back to work, and the biggest way to improve any family's income is to go back to work. Recalling reductions in social welfare, I do not think people will ever forget that Fianna Fáil cut people's social welfare by €16 to €17 a week. That is its legacy, what it has to live with and what it has to explain to people. That is the cause of the fall in people's incomes in respect of social welfare. Deputy Kelleher was a Minister of State at the time and was probably party to those decisions.

In regard to the Deputy's point about Irish Water, over 1.2 million people have registered with Irish Water. At the moment, as Members of the House are aware, the bills are going out. In fact, the Deputy will probably know from conversations that a lot of people are pleasantly surprised to find they have actually beaten the cap. However, where they have not beaten the cap, the quarterly charge for a larger household is €65.

This decision by the Government is essentially to distinguish between those who cannot pay and those who will not pay, and, in the case of people who will not pay, to lay out a clear path for the recovery of civil debt. We know there are a lot of Deputies in this House who earn over €80,000 gross, so I think they are people who can afford to pay. As we know from the record of the House, however, a lot of them have said they will not pay, and they want everybody else to pay for them. That is not acceptable.

Coming back to the question, the first thing about this legislation, which is based on a report by the Law Reform Commission in 2010, is that it removes from people any threat of imprisonment in regard to civil debt. The threat of imprisonment in regard to civil debt, as I am sure people know, goes back to the times of Charles Dickens, when people were imprisoned as debtors. It is a very fundamental reform to take that threat away. I have to say I am very pleased that various organisations have welcomed this legislation.

The second issue is how we set out the details of the legislation and how we distinguish between the people Deputy Kelleher was rightly concerned about and the people on good incomes who just say: "Let everyone else pay for me. I am not paying." Notwithstanding the fact that our water services cost a lot of money, and despite all the work that Irish Water is doing, we know about the leaks and other difficulties such as lead in pipes that were not addressed for decades by local authorities. This reform of court-related debt procedures will be dealt with by the Department of Justice and Equality and we will then have a series of other reforms. The Bill now needs to be drafted.

With regard to social protection, if somebody on social protection is faced with debts, we have long-established principles which remain absolutely intact in regard to how and when money can be deducted from a debt. It has been subjected to very detailed discussion in this House at different times and actually deals with very small amounts.

More importantly, we want to have easy pay systems, in particular through An Post, something which is under discussion and is currently being finalised, through the household budgeting scheme. It will allow people to pay a small amount on a weekly basis. I resent the implications of the Deputy.

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