The Tánaiste Joan Burton says she is fully behind the Government’s new proposal to introduce a new legislation which will see unpaid Irish Water bills deducted from people’s wages and welfare payments.
Ms Burton strongly believes that the new and somewhat drastic measure is long overdue, claiming it is fair penalty that will stop people from being sent to jail for unpaid bills. Ms Burton said the new rules should be put in place in order to ensure people face the consequences for refusing to pay their water bills or other utilities.
Ms Burton told the Dail: “We know there are a lot of deputies in this house, and they earn, roughly, gross, over €80,000,” she told the Dáil earlier. “I think they’re people that can afford to pay, but we know from the record of the House that they won’t pay – they want everyone else to pay form them. That’s not acceptable.”
Meanwhile a number of opposition parties have slammed the new proposals saying the new rules will turn the Government and other agencies, like private landlords, into “pickpockets”.
Sinn Féin’s Mary Lou McDonald claimed the move was “Sneaky, and it’s a cowardly proposition in the face of mass public opposition to your water tax,” “That such a Thatcherite policy is being introduced by Labour Party ministers makes it all the more despicable.”