Alice-Mary Higgins (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I move amendment No. 2:

In page 5, line 18, to delete “€4,000” and substitute “€2,000”.

Amendments Nos. 2 to 4, inclusive, and to an extent amendment No. 5, are related. They all point to a concern in respect of costs. There has been an incentive here and a wish. In a way, this is other sections of the Health (Amendment) Act that are being addressed. It is regrettable, and I share the concerns mentioned by Senator Ward, that the opportunity was not taken to address many other anomalies within the different sets of legislation that have gone through. The changes in fine levels reflect more of a desire for greater efficacy, but there were other anomalies, for example, the issue of "and-or" in one sentence in legislation, or the issue I proposed, which, unfortunately, has been ruled out of order, of what level of emergency, be it a level 5 or level 20 restriction, the protections against evictions would apply at. An opportunity is being missed here to fix some foreseen and some unforeseen anomalies in the legislation that has gone through, again in a constantly rushed fashion, over the past year.

There is an attempt here to address the question of fines and whether they act as a disincentive or are being absorbed into the cost of planned travel. My concern is the level of fine being proposed now. There is perhaps a big difference between €100 or €500 and €1,000, but for people who are extremely wealthy, the difference between €2,000 and €4,000 is not as huge as it should be to create a disincentive. If a person is disincentivised by a fine of €4,000, he or she will be disincentivised by a fine of €2,000. Those who are in a position to ignore a fine of €2,000 are probably in a position to ignore a fine of €4,000. My concern is that this could have a hugely disproportionate effect and we could end up with a whole category of persons who, effectively, would have a record because they have a debt to the State that they are not going to be able to pay, and we have a lot of people in this country who have an income of €20,000 or less. We must also bear in mind that each member of a household could have to pay such a fine, so this really could be crippling. I tabled amendments Nos. 2 to 4, inclusive, to try to represent what I thought were measures that struck that balance between being a disincentive and not inhibiting further. Amendment No. 5, which I would ask the Minister to take on board, gives the Minister the power to address and make changes to charges to address situations where there is an inability to pay, for example, where a person might be an asylum seeker.

I note in the context of Iceland that there is an opportunity there to be looked at whereby hotel quarantine is made available to those who may not be travelling but who may not have the capacity to quarantine at home.