Ciarán Cannon (Fine Gael)

I support this substantial amendment as it offers a practical and human alternative to the last resort of imprisonment proposed in the Bill. I concur with many of my colleagues on this side who have expressed serious reservations about the manner in which this legislation is being forced through the House. The in-depth consideration the Bill requires is not possible in the time available. Such consideration is not only desirable but absolutely necessary. Last week, following only a cursory examination of other legislation, the Local Government (Charges) Bill, Senators discovered a number of unintentional flaws which needed to be rectified. I am pleased to note the majority of these flaws are being addressed as we speak.

Between 2003 and July 2008, 1,138 people were imprisoned for non-payment of debts at an average cost of €270 per person per day. This Dickensian practice has no place in a modern society. Many questions attach to this outdated approach. Rather than being the last resort, as it has been described, imprisonment remains at the heart of the legislation. It is an overly simplistic solution to a very complex problem.

While the House has discussed the elements of responsibility attaching to a debtor, we have had little discussion about the element of responsibility attaching to those who do the lending in the first instance. Every lending institution has a moral responsibility to lend correctly and carry out due diligence before making a loan. I and many others have had concerns in the past two or three years about the development of predatory lending practices by most credit institutions. We have all seen the fall-out from these types of practices.

Colleagues who are customers of a certain credit card company will, like me, have received cheques in the post for €4,000, €6,000 or €8,000 offering to finance a new kitchen or nice holiday abroad. These cheques are signed and legally binding. All one must do is pick up the telephone to have the cheque authorised before proceeding to spend the sum in question. This type of predatory, irresponsible lending has resulted in many people appearing before our courts. With a sanction as serious as a jail term for non-payment available to such predatory lenders, these high-wire trapeze artists have available to them a level of security and a safety net that will continue to encourage them to take risks in lending.

It is interesting to note that in the United Kingdom, our nearest neighbour, the Debtors Act of 1969 abolished sending people to prison for being in debt. More than one and a half centuries later, the United Nations Committee on Human Rights is still recommending that Ireland does the same.

Senator Alex White remarked on the expertise of the free legal advice centres, FLAC, in this area. We must give due regard to FLAC's report and the conclusions it draws. The report states that debt enforcement in this country has a devastating and largely pointless human cost. A survey carried out among people accessing FLAC found that those taken to court for not repaying debts refer to having nightmares, experiencing worry, stress and illness and even resorting to medication. The report also concluded that imprisonment to enforce a private contract debt is "entirely inappropriate", as well as being highly questionable.

The key issue is that alternatives to imprisonment are available. As Senator Regan noted, attachment of the debt to a person's salary or social welfare payment is one such option. Other countries have resorted to the use of community service, which as an option we should consider given that it is at least as substantial a deterrent to non-payment of debt as a prison sentence. It also has the social benefit of having necessary work carried out in the community.

In introducing the recent fines legislation, the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform, Deputy Dermot Ahern, stated he wanted "to reduce, as far as possible, a dependence on imprisonment for default on payment of fines". He emphasised that while very few persons are in prison at one time solely for non-payment of a fine, he is determined to back legislation to reduce those numbers further. The Minister seems to conclude that it is undesirable to imprison people for non-payment of a fine, but I wonder why he does not also consider it particularly undesirable when it involves a civil debt.

I listened to the earlier stage of the debate in my office and it seems there is not much uniformity of opinion across the Government benches on this issue. Senator O'Donovan thinks it is ridiculous to imprison someone for a debt as small as €500 because of the cost involved. Quite rightly, he has major concerns about the stigma and emotional damage attaching to a prison sentence. Senator Walsh sees a system of attaching debt to salaries to be "highly desirable", as he described it. Senator Boyle, while not including himself in this group, said a vast number of people believe imprisonment for non-payment of debt is inherently wrong. He suggested that we must come up with more appropriate legislation. In recent months, we have been promised many times that this legislation will come before us shortly.

The conflicting opinions in the contributions make one wonder about the wisdom of rushing this legislation through the House. Benjamin Franklin said, "Take time for all things; great haste makes great waste". In this instance, this rushed legislation will provide for great waste, first, of hard-earned taxpayers' money in unnecessarily jailing people while most of the time we have a 107% occupancy rate in our prisons. Second, there is the waste of people's basic human dignity while we treat them as criminals when a far more appropriate sanction could be found with a little time and imagination.