Thomas Pringle (Donegal South West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the opportunity to contribute to the debate. The Bill before us today needs to be considered in two separate contexts. There is no doubt that the principle of not confining people to prison for non-payment of debt is laudable and one we all support. However, one cannot divorce this legislation from the second context in which it must be considered, namely, the ongoing campaign against water charges. As the Minister noted, the Bill arises from the 2010 report of the Law Reform Commission and the commitment in the programme for Government in 2011. In July 2015, four and half years later, the Bill is being presented to us on a non-regular sitting day in a rushed fashion because the Government wants to create a sense of urgency about the necessity of having it passed before the summer recess.

The Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government, Deputy Alan Kelly, in pushing through the Environment (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill 2014 yesterday, essentially outlined how that legislation is part of a suite of measures being taken by the Government to impose water charges on the citizens of this country. We are in the middle of a mass boycott of Irish Water, with the introduction of water charges seen as the culmination of years of austerity budgets. People have finally said they cannot and will not take any more. They have campaigned against the charges in their hundreds of thousands, many of them joining the various campaign groups. In Donegal, an organisation called Can't Pay Won't Pay has fought tirelessly against the household charge, property tax and water charges. The Donegal Water Warriors have campaigned hard against the installation of water meters in Letterkenny and Inishowen. Those groups and others like them are fighting on behalf of the many citizens who simply cannot afford to pay and the many other citizens who have stood in solidarity with them by refusing to pay. People are simply not prepared to pay twice for a vital service. That is the most important factor in this whole thing, that people are being asked to pay twice for water. Citizens of this country have always funded water services, but the Government is trying to impose a double charge.

This Bill is part of that suite of measures to which the Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government referred and part of a campaign by the Government to intimidate and put pressure on citizens by putting forth the message that if they do not sign up to Irish Water, they will be hauled before the courts.

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It will be 12 months and possibly two years before any citizen appears in court under the provisions of this Bill or the Environment (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill which was passed yesterday. People can continue to fight and campaign against Irish Water and I believe they will do so. I am encouraged in this view by the refusal of Irish Water to release accurate figures on the number of people who have paid water bills. The reason for this refusal is that people are not paying. I have no doubt that if there was a trend towards payment, Irish Water would release a weekly press release lauding the number of people who had paid their water bills, the success of its campaign and the great work it is doing to try to build momentum and force people to pay. Citizens need to continue to stand together as they have an opportunity to defeat the Government on Irish Water and avoid paying twice for a vital public service.

A number of other issues arise from the Bill, including an issue to which Deputy Clare Daly alluded, which, from my reading of the text, does not appear to have been addressed. If a citizen receives an attachment order to his or her wages for non-payment of a debt, how will he or she be protected from penalisation by his or her employer? If a person experiences particular financial difficulties at a specific time and subsequently has an attachment order made to his or her wages, will an employer be able to use the attachment order against him or her if he or she seeks promotion or a pay rise? What protection is provided or envisaged to ensure attachment orders are not used against workers at a subsequent date?

The legislation does not impose on creditors an obligation to offer debtors a payment plan or require them to enter into a payment plan with a debtor before seeking to secure a payment order for a debt in court. The absence of such a requirement is a major flaw. It is clear from my dealings with utility providers that some of them are better than others in dealing with customers who get into difficulty. One company, in particular, is quick to threaten court action and disconnect services when customers fall behind on bills, while others are willing to discuss payment plans and similar arrangements to ensure customers do not lose a service. The legislation should provide such protection by requiring creditors, particularly utility companies, to ensure services are not withdrawn from people who fall into arrears that could lead to the making of an attachment order. People must be afforded an opportunity to enter into a payment plan to allow them to reduce their debt without having to go before the courts.

On attachment orders for people in receipt of social welfare payments, the Bill is unclear about the level at which attachment orders may be made against social welfare payments. It provides that attachment orders may be made only against an individual's primary payment and may not be made against subsequent payments, for example, for dependent children. In the case of local property taxes, attachment orders may not reduce a payment to an amount lower than the minimum supplementary welfare allowance rate of €186 per week. Will this provision also apply in the case of attachment orders awarded by the courts? Without such a threshold, the courts may place people in even greater financial difficulty by allowing attachment orders to be made which would reduce a social welfare payment to an amount below the level required to survive. Why should the courts be required to adjudicate on the issue of whether a person cannot or will not pay, to use a term favoured by the Government? The system of payment plans and orders must be strengthened to enable citizens to deal with creditors or suppliers prior to the matter ending up in the courts. This should be provided for in the legislation.

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