Ivana Bacik (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister of State, Deputy Ó Ríordáin, to the House and the opportunity to speak on the Bill, which I welcome. I particularly welcome its key principle, which is to seek an end to the imprisonment of persons for non-payment of civil debt.As Senators Conway and van Turnhout stated, this is a really admirable and noble principle and is hugely important. I absolutely concur with what Senator van Turnhout said about the Fines Act. It has exercised many of us, particularly those of us on the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Justice, Defence and Equality, as we have argued that the penal system should genuinely approach imprisonment as a sanction of last resort. It is extremely disturbing to see people continuing to be imprisoned for non-payment of fines years after the Fines Act passed through both Houses of the Oireachtas simply because it has not been commenced. I absolutely concur that we need to implement the Fines Act as a matter of great urgency to ensure people are not being imprisoned for the non-payment of fines. Clearly this is a different matter and this Bill concerns the non-payment of civil debts.

I had already made a note before Senator van Turnhout spoke to say something on the unfortunate speed with which we have been presented with so much legislation so late in the term. I say this every July, and I said it under the previous Government when I was in the Seanad between 2007 and 2011. Every July a glut of legislation comes through both Houses of the Oireachtas. We all know this. It is not a feature of any particular Government; it seems to be just a feature of our legislative system. It is most unfortunate. At the most recent meeting of the justice committee we took a decision on a unanimous cross-party basis to write to the Minister for Justice and Equality to express our concern about this in the particular context of justice legislation. More time should be given and legislation should be introduced on a more reasonable and phased basis throughout the year. There are many weeks during the terms when we have very little legislation before us and inevitably in July we are faced with a glut. The Seanad ends up sitting a number of days after the Dáil to deal with the quantity of legislation.

Having said all that, I welcome the Bill. I very much welcome the fact it will add to the options for the courts in particular to ensure people are no longer imprisoned for non-payment of civil debt. The speed with which the Bill is being passed means, as the Minister stated, the amendment tabled to section 26 in the Dáil on Report Stage yesterday is very welcome. It addresses a key concern highlighted by FLAC in its excellent paper on the Bill. It stated the options against imprisonment need to be strengthened through amendment of the Enforcement of Court Orders Act. As the Minister stated in her opening speech, this is being done through section 26 of the Bill, which was inserted on Report Stage in the Dáil and provides for the amendment of section 6 of the Enforcement of Court Orders Act to remove the possibility of imprisonment for non-payment of debts. I did not have the opportunity to attend a briefing on the Bill, nor did I know anything about the briefing yesterday afternoon, but it is positive that the amendment has been made.

We are all conscious that the provisions of the Bill apply only to debts of more than €500 and less than €4,000 in value. The Minister pointed out the debts to which the Bill will not apply and this is also important. The Minister spoke at length about how the Bill seeks to implement a number of recommendations of the Law Reform Commission on the enforcement of debt. She also pointed out the Law Reform Commission's report of 2010 made a range of recommendations, not all of which are addressed by the Bill. Some of them were implemented in the Personal Insolvency Act 2012 and other personal insolvency legislation.

An issue raised by a number of colleagues which should be dealt with in other legislation is protection for the debtor against adverse treatment by an employer as a result of an attachment of earnings order. As Senator van Turnhout stated, the Law Reform Commission's key recommendation is that the Unfair Dismissals Act be amended to prohibit the dismissal of an employee on the grounds he or she has become subject to an attachment of earnings order. This should be the subject of future legislation.

FLAC has pointed out the Bill represents the implementation of only some of the measures in the Law Reform Commission's report and the Minister has acknowledged this. It does not seek to implement the entirety of the report. In particular, she noted that the Bill does not propose to implement recommendations for wide-scale reform of the current debt enforcement regime, including the establishment of a debt enforcement office. Future legislation should address this issue. The Bill focuses simply on improving existing court-based enforcement measures. It is important to state that FLAC's report is more wide ranging, as is the Law Reform Commission's report. We need a broader suite of measures to deal with civil debt enforcement more generally, and the Minister has already commented on this.

The key principle of the Bill to ensure an end to the imprisonment of those unable to pay civil debt is very welcome and fits in absolutely with the recommendations of the justice committee, which in a previous report on penal reform recommended a decrease in the use of imprisonment, and, in particular, that imprisonment should be a sanction of last resort and should be reserved for serious and, in particular, violent offenders. Non-payment of civil debt is not something for which we should continue to imprison people.