Liam Twomey (Fine Gael)

As the Minister was not given the opportunity to reply on Second Stage, we have had to wait for information until now that we could have received at that time. In the meantime, I would like to ask the Minister of State a few extra questions in support of this amendment, which aims to prevent people from being sent to prison for minor reasons. That is the main thing. It does not apply to those who have no intention of ever paying their debts. When this legislation was being drafted, what kind of information was acquired about those who are sent to prison in these circumstances? What amounts of money are people being imprisoned for not paying? Has any research been done into those who are jailed? Are they just unfortunate? Did they lose their jobs, for example? Do they no longer have the ability to earn an income? How did they find themselves in the stressful situation of having to go to court? Are they the kind of people who, in normal circumstances, would try to pay their debts? Alternatively, are they serial offenders? Do they have a history of chancing their arm and not paying their debts? Do they tend to break the law and get into all kinds of trouble? The outcomes for the two different groups would be very different. It would be almost wrong to jail people who find themselves in this position by accident, as opposed to those whose behaviour it is much more difficult to change. There are other ways of getting the money back from people who have some assets or a steady income from any source, such as a social welfare payment or a cheque from an employer. Putting people in prison can only be considered as the most expensive way for the State to collect its debts.

The fact that just one in five people turns up when summoned to court in these circumstances should not automatically be seen as an indication that four in five people choose to throw caution to the wind. People might not attend for a range of reasons. They might feel shame because the District Court sits in their own communities, they might not understand what is asked of them or they might decide to bury their heads in the sand. Many people might not attend because they suffer from depression or anxiety, which might have been the cause of their huge debts in the first instance. There are many circumstances that result in people not going to court. When they were drawing up this Bill, the Minister of State and his officials should have gathered information from the Courts Service, in the interests of ensuring the legislation is useful. To be honest, the manner in which we have operated for over 300 years cannot be said to have worked effectively, given that we are still trying to amend it. We need to examine who is being jailed and why, with specific reference to the amounts concerned.

It has been mentioned that the Law Reform Commission is considering this whole area. While I accept that a jail sentence represents the only way forward for a small minority of people, I suggest that the commission should examine whether another option should be pursued in the majority of cases. This issue relates to what I said about the issue of maintenance on Second Stage. Some people do not apply to the courts for maintenance because they know it can lead to difficulties even if the application is successful. If a person's estranged partner decides to ignore a court order for payment, or to be extremely difficult when the time comes to hand over the money, the amount of maintenance that is not paid to the person will nevertheless be considered as part of his or her income when he or she goes looking for social welfare assistance. Such people often decide not to bother going to the courts. The State does not take too much interest in such matters. The result of the State's failure to put in place a means of chasing people who should be making maintenance payments is that it has to make those payments, in the form of social welfare payments, instead. I do not think the Department of Social and Family Affairs makes any great effort to ensure maintenance payments are made. The Minister of State needs to outline his views on this issue.

When we talk about these matters, we should also reflect on the broader picture around us. Banks and lending agencies are invariably involved in most of the cases that result in people being jailed. As far as we are aware, no bank executives or managers of any great consequence have faced any investigation of any significance - that could result in them facing criminal prosecution - over the last 12 months. In the United States, by contrast, Bernie Madoff and Allen Stanford, who perpetrated frauds worth many billions of dollars, were arrested, investigated and brought before the courts. It is clear that they were well connected and had plenty of friends. Many people, right down the line, who dealt with millions and hundreds of thousands of dollars have been investigated in the US. To the best of my knowledge, no one of any consequence has been investigated by the Garda fraud squad and no prosecutions have been brought by the Office of the Director of Corporate Enforcement. We are familiar with the case of a chief executive officer of a bank who gave himself a loan of €87 million. Members have spoken about the "golden ten" in Anglo Irish Bank, for whom loans in excess of €300 million were arranged by the bank. The terms of the loans were changed so that the people in question would not be responsible for having to repay them. Although a number of similar cases have emerged throughout our financial system, no prosecutions have been brought.

It is almost laughable that we are being asked to support legislation that will jail people for the sake of €50, at a time when people are able to avoid repaying €300 million by changing terms and conditions with their friendly bank managers. The Government has made no effort to restore this country's credibility. In some respects, it is happy to see Ireland being painted as a semi-corrupt banana republic, where anything goes as long as one is big enough and has sufficient connections. That is another issue that should be dealt with before any Minister or Minister of State comes in here to talk about jailing people on the basis of minor infringements involving small amounts of money. The Government should address the fact that neither the Office of the Director of Corporate Enforcement nor the Garda fraud squad seems to have the resources and legislative back-up - I hope they have the ability - to help to restore the credibility of the Irish financial services sector following the frenzy of poor lending and other practices of the last four or five years. I ask the Minister of State to respond to some of the issues I have raised if he gets an opportunity to do so.