Alan Kelly (Tipperary North, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I ask the Opposition to spare a thought for the 11,300 people in County Roscommon who this week are no longer on boil-water notices, thanks to the work of Irish Water.

Having safe drinking water is the least our citizens deserve. They certainly deserve it having been put in that place for decades.

In tandem with these amendments, the Minister for Justice and Equality, Deputy Fitzgerald, published the Civil Debt (Procedures) Bill yesterday. The Bill seeks to implement the recommendations of the Law Reform Commission's report on the enforcement of debt, principally around the streamlining of existing enforcement procedures. Under the Bill, creditors will be able to apply to the court for an order enabling either attachment of earnings or deductions from social welfare payments, as appropriate, for the purpose of enforcement of debt. This important change will be accompanied by a crucial safeguard: the abolition of imprisonment of debtors, except in the case of maintenance arising from family law proceedings. This, I believe, represents a balanced approach to the recovery of civil debt so that creditor rights are protected with a range of legal mechanisms which compel payment by those debtors who will not pay, while removing the outdated threat of imprisonment in such cases. The legislation supports the distinction between the "can pay but won't pay" debtors and those who are willing to pay but are in financial difficulty, a distinction that is crucial in implementing the underlying fairness aspect of domestic water charges.

The water conservation grant, the details of which I announced last November, will play an important role in helping households deal with the costs of water services and in adopting more sustainable approaches to water usage. Though many homes in rural areas have been paying for water for years, which is often forgotten, the introduction of domestic water charges across the country is a major change for the vast majority.

I fully understand the resentment to any new charge or tax. The people have had to deal with the financial difficulties presented by the recession and they have stepped up to the plate. As the country now begins to look around the corner to a recovering economy, an essential ingredient has to be a modern and sustainable public water system that can meet the demands of a growing and mature market economy and of which we all can be proud.

I am also introducing a technical amendment to clarify the wording of a provision in the Bill as published, as well as introducing technical but nevertheless, important amendments to allow payments from the Local Government Fund to proceed as envisioned in the Revised Estimates Volume and two changes to the Finance (Excise Duties) (Vehicles) Act 1952, relating to motor tax matters. We will have an opportunity to go into more detail on these provisions as the individual amendments are discussed in the House.

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