Pádraig Mac Lochlainn (Donegal North East, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Through their contributions last Friday and today, Government Deputies have tried their hardest to steer the debate away from the real reason for this Bill. It is obvious that this is a desperate attempt to follow on from the undemocratic process with which the Government rammed through the Environment (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill last week, all in the hope that outstanding issues relating to the water charges disaster would be tied up before the summer recess and would not need to be debated in the autumn before a possible election. People can see right through this. They see what the Government is trying to do and will remember this come election time. The fight against the Government's unjust water taxes is far from over. Those in the Government will not sweep the matter under the carpet, because the people, and those of us in the House who stand up for them, will not let them.

Claims to the effect that the Bill has come from the Law Reform Commission, that it does not apply to debts to moneylenders, that it is a necessary step to solve a civil debt problem, that the courts have safeguards in place to afford protection, and the great line that it differentiates between those who cannot pay and those who will not, are spin to avoid admitting the Bill's real purpose. I have yet to see how the Bill differentiates in any meaningful way between those who cannot pay and those who will not. The Government's spin does not address any of the real concerns.

I draw the Minister of State's attention to quotes from the speech of the Minister for Justice and Equality at the launch of the report of the Free Legal Advice Centres, FLAC, yesterday. She stated:

Many, many people obviously want to pay their debts, and those who can pay them will pay them. No reasonable person will resent seeing someone who has fallen on hard times benefit from proportionate debt forgiveness.

The hypocrisy is unbelievable. The Government is in favour of debt forgiveness by legislating for a mechanism to take unpaid debt directly from a person's wages or social welfare. How does this work? The Bill is an obvious attempt to target those on low pay or social welfare. We are discussing sums that are relatively small for those in the higher echelons of society. For ordinary people, though, debts of this level have a serious impact on their lives. These are the people who will be targeted disproportionately.

The Government is afraid that its Irish Water plans are coming apart at the seams. The truth is that they are. The Bill is intimidation on the Government's part. It is an underhanded attempt to transform the Government's fear about Irish Water into the people's fear that they may be dragged before the courts for their accumulated debts. People are not naive; they can see through this.

What the Bill deals with is legislatively unnecessary and avoidable, or at least, it was until the Government needed such a mechanism in order to prop up the power of its own creditor, Irish Water. Let me be clear: Irish Water must be abolished, and there should be no need for recovery of unpaid charges at all.

Regarding other creditors, Sinn Féin opposes the Bill because it does not require creditors to consider whether there is a more appropriate way to deal with disputes before rushing to the courts, further clogging the system, to get legal orders against persons in debt. Civil debt is a serious strain on anyone. The Bill seeks to punish those who fall into this trap, mostly those on low wages or social welfare who are already living on the poverty line, by giving creditors the option to drag them before a judge without any need to try to solve the dispute through a less adversarial method.

Sinn Féin has submitted amendments to the Bill for consideration on Committee Stage. They are simple. Of the 27 sections, only one is of merit. Section 26 repeals Parts I and IV of the Debtors Act (Ireland) 1872. It is the only section that we support.

I wish to address some of the bizarre comments made by Deputy Catherine Byrne on Friday. She must have seen some of the media coverage over the weekend and realised the stupidity of her comments and just how far removed she is from the majority of citizens in the State. It must be difficult for her stretching her budget in such a way. After all, one could hardly fill a shopping basket on a basic salary of €87,000 per year. Deputy Catherine Byrne, in referencing this Bill, stated that people had a civic responsibility to pay debts, including debts relating to water charges. I am happy that she acknowledged this, but how does an increase in the pensions of former Taoisigh and Ministers contribute to their civic responsibility? How does a ministerial pay increase contribute? I am sure the Deputy will be delighted that she, too, can now afford a little luxury by way of a bottle of wine at the weekend, with a salary increase on the cards for Deputies as well. It is insulting to suggest that the low-paid and those on welfare, whom this Bill targets, have not paid their way. Do Government Deputies even bother to read their e-mails or talk to people in their constituencies?

In case Deputy Catherine Byrne is oblivious to how her voting record in this Dáil has forced those on low pay or welfare to contribute to their civic responsibility more than any other sector of society, here are some statistics to help her understand. They were compiled by Dr. Rory Hearne and published at the weekend. The eight austerity budgets between 2008 and 2014 involved €18.5 billion in cuts to public spending. Public service staff numbers have been reduced by 37,500, or 10%. The health budget has seen a 27% cut, with an 81% increase in the number of patients on trolleys in hospital waiting rooms. Funding for local authority housing was cut from €1.3 billion in 2007 to just €83 million in 2013. There were cuts to lone parent payments, which happened last week, as well as to child benefit and fuel allowance, the back-to-school clothing and footwear allowance, rent supplement, and disability and carer's allowances. There have been extra charges for households, including water, property, school transport, prescription and third level fees, on top of an increase in living costs.

There has been a 50% cut to community, youth and rural development schemes. The obvious result has been hundreds of thousands of families pushed into poverty. Food poverty in Ireland affects 600,000 people. Are these the people that Deputy Byrne believes are filling their trolleys with drink? I hope the Deputy realises how much hurt her comments have caused to hundreds of thousands of struggling people who have more than paid off their civic responsibility. This Bill aims to bleed such people dry for the benefit of Irish Water in cases where there may be some unpaid debt. The points raised by Deputy Byrne raise serious questions about the mindset of this Government. I suggest that her insulting remarks expose a deeper problem, which is the Government's belief that it has the power to dictate to people in this State how they should live their lives and what they can and cannot afford. This is indicative of the Government's mindset on the very purpose of this Bill. The Government appears to believe it is acceptable to draft legislation to dictate to people how much money should be deducted from their hard-earned wages and how that money should be spent. This is not how democracy works. It is certainly not the right way for the Government to deal with its water charge failures.

Sinn Féin will submit amendments to this Bill on Committee Stage. We will not support the Bill as it is. It must be amended to delete all sections which advocate a flawed approach to the recovery of debt. An adversarial approach is not the way forward. The only section of merit in the entire Bill is that providing for the abolition of the imprisonment of debtors, which is a sensible proposal. The rest of the Bill misses the bigger picture. It is unnecessary and ruthless to allow companies, including Irish Water, to use bully tactics to recover debt in this way. It is not the direction that legal resolutions are heading in. For the most part, the courts are heading down a path of mediation and dispute resolution. To allow creditors to use the courts as a first option, as this Bill does, undermines the direction the courts are taking. It is not an acceptable way for the Government to deal with the problem it will face in trying to enforce the unjust and unfair water tax that has been imposed on our people.

See this speech in context