Michael Noonan (Limerick City, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Some people in this country are very badly off, and some families are very badly off. We all know that from our neighbours, friends and the communities we live in but the deferral sections of the Bill are aimed at dealing with that problem. For single people on an income below ¤15,000 and for a couple with an income below ¤25,000, there will be a deferral. Those who are badly off because they are paying huge mortgages can add ¤20,000 interest on to the top of that income for a couple and still get deferrals. There is quite a good deferral system. If one has to pay ¤300 a year and one defers that for ten years, that is only ¤3,000 on the value of the house plus 4% interest, which would probably bring it up to some hundreds of euro beyond that. The deferral system is not a big penalty on the value of the house and it is there for persons who have an inability to pay. However, a lot of people have an ability to pay and we should not take the hard case as the typical case.

The Senator will recall a few weeks ago there was a change in the television signal and a good deal of data came across my desk when that was being done. Does he know that 82% of households in Ireland have pay television packages? Most of them do not have the basic package, they also have sport and film channels. If one considers the cost of that-----