Martin Kenny (Sligo-Leitrim, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank Deputy Pearse Doherty for bringing forward this Bill. It is clear where and the way in which this issue has the most impact in our society. The main people who will deal with these moneylenders are women because they are the ones who sort out the household budget. Often it is around the managing of that budget that much of this borrowing takes place. Women borrow to purchase a new washing machine when the old one breaks down or the car breaks down or a child is going to college or they need to get a deposit for a house. The moneylender steps in to cover those expenses.

We have been commemorating suffrage and the fact women got their rights one hundred years ago. Economic independence for women is something Countess Markievicz and those people at that time wanted to establish. That is what missing in all of this. What we are talking about here is a debt trap but really it is a poverty trap. It is people in poverty who end up in these situations. They may not even think they are in poverty. They are people who have decent jobs but cannot make ends meet because of the high cost of living in our society. We debated a Bill on the high cost of rents and evictions earlier. All of these elements are interconnected. Many people who have work are in precarious employment but have very low income. All of that is incurring a cost on our society. There is a cost to poverty. There is interest on poverty. There is almost a compounding of poverty. That is what happens in these situations. If a family is short of money, the parents, for example, will not be able to send their child to a dental practice for dental hygiene. The child will then develop a problem with their teeth and will have to go to a hygienist and then to an orthodontist, but where will the family get the money to cover the cost involved in such dental care?

Many of these people are just one crisis away from everything going up in smoke. They are under a great degree of pressure, including mental health pressure. They know that in the small community in the housing estate in which they live, every Thursday evening there is somebody who goes around door to door collecting money and offering a loan. It is an easy opt-out and they take it. The moneylender comes back again six months later and offers the person a loan for something else. People get into this trap and they cannot get out of it. They become smothered by it.

People in abusive relationships, and again it is mainly women, are vulnerable. The husband may be drinking and his wife cannot get money when a crisis arises and moneylenders feed on that. They target that. They can smell it and they go for it. It is absolute greed. There cannot be any excuse not to accept this Bill or to kick it down the road for a while. I concur with the Minister of State that he is genuine about addressing this issue but it should not be deferred for a year. If it was his mother or sister who was in this situation, would he leave addressing this issue for a year? I think not. That is what we need to realise. One hundred years ago women went out and said that they wanted economic independence, a better future for their daughters and granddaughters, and now their granddaughters are in this situation today and the Government is saying it will leave addressing this issue for a little while. It has been left long enough.

The essence of this issue is that poverty has become a policy. If poverty is the policy, then that policy is driving those people who make their money on poverty. That is what is at the core of all of this. The compounding of poverty, interest and debt on a sector of society that is at the bottom and kept at the bottom must change. While we are dealing with the specific issue of the interest rates and how these people are doing this, it is connected to all the rest of it. There is a charge against the Minister of State's Government because we are dealing with this issue. We should not have to be dealing with it because these moneylenders should have no market for the product they sell. That is the reality. If we had a society that was functioning properly, there would be no market for this.

The credit unions are part of the answer and we know that but the problem here is the problem of poverty. While we know we will always have a certain level of that, unfortunately, we have far too much of it. The rest of the people who sit around the Cabinet table who deal with issues of income disparity, the housing crisis, the hospital crisis, the healthcare crisis and all such matters feed into all of this for the people who are struggling the most. It is all a reflection of all of that.

The issue at stake is greater than the one we are discussing tonight, but what we are discussing now must be brought into focus. We cannot continue to kick this down the road or to avoid it. Reports will appear while the Bill is going through Committee Stage and being dealt with properly. I appeal to the Minister of State to listen to us. It is clear that the Bill will pass. Fianna Fáil will support the Bill and we support it. I expect the vast majority of the House will support it. For the sake of the people who are suffering, it is only right for the Minister of State to withdraw the amendment and support the Bill.

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