Aengus Ó Snodaigh (Dublin South Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I said that about Irish Water and the waste management companies. I did not raise the issue of waste management and people with €1,500, or whatever, left over. That debt is sold. That is what companies do. They will make a provision in their annual accounts to write it off after two or three years. It is not worth the time of most of these companies chasing the €500 or the €4,000. They will give it to someone else, the vultures which go around chasing money. That is where the problem lies. These companies exist and for a few short pounds will try to turn a profit.

We need to find alternatives to prison, whether community service orders or something else. I do not have a problem with them. We have not used them enough. A great deal of change has happened in recent years. I recall arguing this in 2002 with the then Minister for Justice, Michael McDowell, saying the Law Reform Commission and others needed to do much more. It is good that this proposal came from a report of the Law Reform Commission. It is not new but it is new in the way it was presented to us this week. This dates back to 2010. We had an idea of some of the proposals the commission made but Law Reform Commission reports have been published and have been left on the shelf. At one stage I had 20 years’ worth of them on a shelf in the office. Thankfully most of them are now online, which makes it a little easier to find information.

That this was produced on a Monday, just after another Bill, which we dealt with yesterday, was introduced, shows the rush to get it through before the summer recess. That is why people associated this with Irish Water. I heard some of the debate earlier and will not go into that issue.

I made an interesting point to the Minister for Social Protection about these orders. In the Department of Social Protection if there is an overpayment it can be deducted at a rate of 15%. I have dealt with the case of a woman who received €188 a week from the Department but got €60 a week in maintenance payments. A reasonable person would deduct the €60 and then apply the 15% deduction. That makes a big difference to the final figure. If the 15% is deducted in that way, the final figure is €109.20. If it is taken the other way, from the total social welfare payment and then the €60 is deducted the final amount is €99. That is a difference of €10 because the calculation is made in the wrong place. That needs to be borne in mind. That woman, who is upfront about her maintenance payment, is being doubly penalised. I hope that on Committee Stage we will be able to deal with practical issues such as this to make sure that any other deductions are made before the courts grant any attachment order or deduction.

The supplementary welfare allowance is supposedly the minimum amount necessary to keep a person out of poverty.

It is set currently at €186. The argument in the past was that the maximum that could be taken off the full rate of €188 was €2. This has changed to 15%. Once attachment orders are made to €188 or €186, if it is the supplementary welfare allowance a person could fall into poverty. I know a statement of means is allowed for. I am not 100% sure how strong that will be or what standing a judge will give it. There are sometimes practical difficulties involved in getting a statement of means together. A person needs to be given enough time to put together such a statement. It is important that people understand it because nearly 20% of people are functionally illiterate, which goes back to fairness and balance. These people do not engage with forms or understand these types of documents. To most people, the legislation is gobbledegook because it is not written in plain English, or plain Irish for that matter.

I was put out by Deputy Catherine Byrne's idea that it is all down to budgeting skills. There is a lot more behind this. Everybody should be able to afford to live. If a person is not entitled to a payment, it should be taken from them. People are entitled to little luxuries once in a while. We do not know what is behind those who have an addiction to cigarettes. I think it is madness but I do not have an addiction. Others have an addiction, be it to alcohol, drugs or cigarettes. Cigarettes are a craving that needs to be satisfied and people have gone into huge debt as a result. It is very easy to say "grow up and stop spending money on them" but that does not work. If it worked, we would have the best health system in the world. We cannot just tell people to stop smoking and stop drinking. The Deputy made the point that some people are spending too much on drink and cigarettes and that they should be poor, basically wear sackcloth and pay off every single debt. People should pay their debts. Nobody is denying that but we must be careful that the provisions we create in here are not too onerous. We are supposed to be citizens and equal. Society is not equal and that is part of what we are addressing.

If we are to implement this type of provision, we need to make sure the Government is not making laws that allow the rich to get off scot-free when it comes to debt. That is the problem. People have read in the media how huge debts have been written off. One of the major press barons in the country who is a multibillionaire had €300 million written off while somebody else will not get €500 written off. They are two separate messages. Fairness requires that we go after all debt. These debts are being written off by banks that belong to the State and a mixed message is being sent out. We can sit here and try to rush through this legislation but legislation to ensure that banks controlled by the Irish taxpayer recover all of the debt owed by those who took on that debt and gambled is not being rushed through. They are no different from a person who spent an extra €5 or €10 on electricity to ensure their baby had hot water or to boil water for a bottle, as was the case with a woman who wrote to me this morning. She said she now has to boil every drop of water or ask her neighbours whether their water has the same problem and if not, whether she can share their water. That is how concerned she is that the lead in her pipes will poison her five-month-old child.

If this legislation were introduced in the normal fashion promised by this Government, which involves passing the heads of the Bill and having a pre-legislative stage where the committee would have been able to hear from stakeholders like FLAC, the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission, Sister Stanislaus Kennedy and Fr. Peter McVerry who all work with the very people who will be hammered by this legislation, we might have had different legislation. It might have been expanded to give additional protections to the poorest. I have major concerns about how this legislation was produced. We are supposed to have two weeks between the publication of a Bill and its first hearing in here. I know the intention is to have this legislation go through Committee Stage next Friday and come back to the Dáil the following week. This is madness, particularly for such a substantial change in the way we approach civil debt and the onerous mechanisms we are heaping upon the Courts Service and for whose benefit? Most of the beneficiaries will be private companies who can well afford to write down debt for which they have already made provision in their annual accounts. I am perturbed that once again we are approaching the end of a session and the Government rushes through legislation which could be good if the time and effort were taken to ensure it addressed all of the problems, which have been addressed by other spokespersons before us.

A number of recent court cases mentioned that there needs to be an appeals mechanism for everything. I do not see a provision for an appeals mechanism in this legislation if the full order is made. I might be wrong and am subject to correction in that regard. Such a provision needs to be in any type of legal case. We found some cases where there is no appeals mechanism. This needs to be looked at to ensure a person can appeal an attachment order.

I am also concerned about the fact that an employer could find out what an attachment order is about. A lot of people do not like discussing their financial details with their employers yet the court will be able to let the employer know how much has to be deducted from the person's wages. I wish to call a quorum.

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