Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The point I am making is that the employer has to smash the relationship he has had with the employee and collect the money. If he does not, the party opposite will fine him. Not satisfied with burdening employers with the role of debt collector, the Government is stipulating employers will have to go to the courts as part of normal employment behaviour. For an employer to determine whether particular payments are earnings, he or she has to make an application to the court under the legislation. He may also be required to provide to the court a statement of specified particulars of his or her employee's earnings and expected earnings. As if employers had not enough to do already, they must now deal with court documents and procedures.

Where an employee against whom an attachment order has been made changes employment, the new employer must notify the court in writing that the person is now his or her employee and include in such notification a statement of the debtor's earnings and expected earnings from the relevant employment. Both the existing employer and also the future employer must submit a notification. If a future employer were looking for staff to join his team and a prospective employee had an attachment order, that employer would be sucked into a bureaucratic nightmare when enforcing the Government’s policy. Would the employer choose a potential staff member with an attachment order or someone else? A staff member with an attachment order becomes less employable under the legislation. The attachment order probably arises through poverty, and the Minister has actually reduced the affected individual’s ability to earn in the future.

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