This Bill is intended to make certain amendments in the law relating to instalment orders, maintenance orders, and affiliation orders, and to authorise the release in proper cases of persons imprisoned for the non-payment of debt. An explanatory memorandum has been circulated with the Bill and perhaps all I need do at present is to refer to the three principal defects in the existing law, which the Bill is intended to remedy. The first defect is that under the existing law arrears of weekly sums due under maintenance orders and affiliation orders have to be sued for in the same way as ordinary civil debts. This is a slow and expensive procedure, and I understand that many women who obtain maintenance orders and affiliation orders make no attempt to enforce them when they discover the difficulties involved. Section 8 of the Bill is intended to provide a simpler and more effective procedure for the enforcement of such orders. The second defect is that when a man is imprisoned under the Enforcement of Court Orders Act, 1926, for failure to pay an instalment of a debt, he cannot be released before the expiry of the period for which he is committed, unless he pays the whole debt. Payment of the instalment for which he is committed is not sufficient. Section 6 (e) of the Bill is intended to remedy that defect. The third defect is that there does not appear to be any clear authority for the release of a person imprisoned for the non-payment of debt even in a case where the creditor asks for the release or in a case where for health reasons it is undesirable that the debtor should be detained in prison. Section 9 of the Bill is intended to authorise the release of debtors in proper cases.
Enforcement of Court Orders Bill, 1940—Second Stage.
Speaking generally, I support the Bill but there were one or two points raised in the Dáil some of which the Minister partly met and some of which I think he did not meet. I understand that his reasons were that he thought they should be in another Bill but it seems to me a great pity that it is not possible, without waiting for a long time, to have some sort of register. I know the views of certain people—I am thankful to say I am rarely one—who have to go to a great deal of trouble to collect debts. At the same time, I would be much more concerned with trying to prevent credit being given to people who are not credit worthy than I would be to find methods of enforcing punishment against them. For that reason I believe easy access to a register would have the effect not of enforcing court orders but the effect of making it not necessary to have the orders to enforce to such an extent and to that extent it would be remedial. While I am not prepared to debate at length with the Minister whether it should or should not be included in this Bill, I do express the opinion that it is a pity we have to stand on ceremony and say that because it should be in another Bill it could not be provided now. I believe it would be of the greatest possible value.
I see a difficulty with regard to the question of the release of men who have been committed. They could not be released before unless they paid the whole debt. I am not sure whether we have not gone to the other extreme now by providing that they can be released on payment of the one instalment even though by that time a further one has become due. That is a difficulty which seems to be rather a flaw in the Bill because the minute a man is released because one instalment is paid you may have a proceeding all over again, which takes a couple of months, for the next instalment. When you are now providing that there will be a definite limit of, I think, six years, and there will be no such thing as payment of debts over a long time, I am not so sure that it is necessary to go quite as far as the Minister has done in this Bill.
I think I dealt with that fairly fully in the Dáil. The main purpose of this Bill is to enforce court orders, principally in the case of affiliation orders and maintenance orders and, of course, when we were doing that, we though it well to provide for the release, in proper cases, of people whom it was doubtful we had power to release otherwise. As I said in the other House, Ministers from time to time have been faced with the problem that the creditor has actually asked to have the person released but it was not clear that they had that power. We simply provide for these things and, as I said to Deputy Dockrell, the other matter is not a matter of enforcing court orders, but a matter of safeguarding creditors in ordinary business and would fall more appropriately to be dealt with in a Bill dealing with the amendment of the bankruptcy laws or something of that kind. There is something being done in that matter. I think the position at present is that the Department is waiting for suggestions from some section of the business community in that regard. We do not think that this is a proper Bill for keeping the register or for going any further than we are going. It is not that we do not see that it is a serious thing to have people getting credit who are not credit worthy but we do not think this is the Bill to deal with it. I have not heard any reason to depart from that opinion.