Trevor Ó Clochartaigh (Sinn Fein)

I move amendment No. 8:

In page 6, to delete lines 46 to 48 and substitute the following:

"(12) A person who fails to comply with a request under subsection (11) within 10 days, shall receive a warning notification and must produce within 90 days.".

Táimid ag bualadh leis an leasú moltach seo. We were just looking at the time allocated being ten days for someone who fails to comply with the request under subsection (11). We felt this was unreasonable and impracticable in the circumstances. People who write to a Department would rarely receive a reply within ten days. To expect citizens who fail to comply with the request under subsection (11) to have replied in all cases is quite unreasonable so we want that period to be extended to 90 days. A person who had not complied would be issued with a warning and given 90 days to comply. Taking the case of a family bereavement, it would be unreasonable to expect people to have dealt with things within ten days. People could be on holiday or working away fro home so the ten day period is not a good idea.

The other issue that we raised repeatedly is that non-compliance with this Act will be an offence. Sinn Féin does not agree with the criminalisation of someone who is not in compliance with the Bill. Nothing the Minister said last week changed our opinion on this. The Bill should be changed so that someone who does not comply does not get a criminal record. We do not want to rehash the arguments but we pointed out that work could be done by a shoddy builder or the tank could be on someone else's land; we made numerous arguments. The Minister clarified that the owner of the tank at the time will be liable for whatever work is done. Also, in the context of our not yet having even the specifications that are supposedly to be adhered to as part of the Bill, it is hard for us to support the Bill and that is why we have tabled these amendments on committing an offence.