Trevor Ó Clochartaigh (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Sinn Féin opposes the section. Section 12 places an obligation on employers to comply with attachment orders. Under the section, employers have to smash the relationships they have had with employees and collect the money. Otherwise, the courts will fine them. Not satisfied with burdening employers with the role of debt collector, the Government is stipulating employers will have to go to courts as part of normal employment behaviour. For an employer to determine whether particular payments are earnings, he or she will have to make an application to the courts under the legislation and may also be required to provide to the court a statement of specified particulars of his or her employees' earnings and expected earnings. As if employers did not have enough to do already, they must now deal with court documents and procedures.

When an employee against whom an attachment order has been made changes employment, the new employer must notify the court in writing that the person is now his or her employee and include in such notification a statement of the debtors' earnings and expected earnings from the relevant employment. Both the existing and future employer must submit a notification. If a future employer were looking for staff, and a prospective employee had an attachment order, the employer would be sucked into a bureaucratic nightmare when enforcing the Government's policy. Would an employer choose a potential staff member who has an attachment order, or somebody else? A person against whom an attachment order has been made becomes less employable under the legislation. The attachment order probably arises through poverty and the Minister has reduced the affected person's ability to earn in the future.

Setting aside the excessive administrative burden the Government is imposing on employers, imagine the impact of the measure on employee-employer relationships. In a difficult economic environment, many such relationships are already fraught and difficult, given that both sides of the employment contract are being pulled in different directions. This will cause more difficulty for employee and employer. We must ask whether the Government consulted any employers on the legislation. My colleague, Deputy Tóibín recently contacted the Small Firms Association and learned his call was the first it had received on the matter. It has never been discussed at an Oireachtas committee. As far as I know, the issue has not been broached with any employer and yet employers will have a new role under the Government's proposals.