Catherine Byrne (Dublin South Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Having listened to the debate in my office, I hope my contribution will be helpful in so far as it adds an element of fairness and balance. We live in what we all wish to be a civilised and civic society. This Bill is an important step towards achieving that end by ensuring people who have small debts do not end up in prison. It is wrong that people should be imprisoned in those circumstances, whether for 24 hours, 48 hours or any other length of time, and there is a cost to society when it is done.

This legislation might be summed up by saying it is based on the principle that people in society have a civic responsibility to pay their way. I was reared in a household where that principle always held sway. At that time, whether one worked or not, if one did not pay monetarily, one paid in some other way. People come to me regularly to complain about other people who do not pay their television licence fee or who, instead of paying waste charges, put their rubbish in their neighbours' bins. I am always asked the same question, namely, why these people are allowed to get away with it. The reason they get away with it is that some people in our society and some people in opposition in this House believe everything should be free. I do not believe that and nor, I am convinced, do the majority of people in this country.

I do, however, believe in fairness and balance. There are people in our society from a range of different backgrounds who find themselves struggling because of various things that have happened in the recent years of recession. The previous Government chose to borrow money from everywhere without a concern as to how it would be repaid. My mother had a simple task to do in order to manage her home and family. Every Friday night she received from my father the brown envelope containing his wages. The money was divided up to pay for electricity, gas, groceries and so on, with ten shillings returned to my father to take with him to work at the docks, to which he cycled every morning. That is what I call fairness and balance. Moreover, despite what some Members on the other side of the House are saying, I know they, too, recognise the importance of having that fairness and balance in society.

Deputies who find fault with the Bill are doing so for political reasons.

While I do not normally speak off the cuff, I must respond to some of the cruel accusations made by previous speakers on the issue of lone parents. I do not wish to stray far from the Bill as I listened to the debate veer from one issue to another while in the Chair yesterday. The facts are simple. For far too long, this country did not have proper social welfare arrangements. For the first time, we have a Minister for Social Protection who has the guts to make tough decisions. As I pointed out yesterday, a single parent with one child who returns to work for 19 hours per week will have an income of €400 per week. That is a fact. I have a young daughter living with me who works in a shop for the minimum wage of €8.65 per hour. She gets out of bed at 7 a.m. and makes her way to Blanchardstown on the Luas and bus. She works hard for her few bob, which adds up to much less than €400 per week. I see in my family someone who has made a life-changing decision. She did not have children or sit at home but went out and acquired an education and then went out to work.

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