The Government has produced legislation to allow for unpaid utility bills to be taken from your welfare payments or wages.

Minister for Justice Frances Fitzgerald produced the Civil Debt bill allowing for attachment orders for debts over €500 and less than €4,000.

It will not apply to any debt from a financial institution.

The legislation will abolish imprisonment for not paying their debt.

The law will apply to those people who do not pay their water charges. Anti-Austerity Alliance TD Ruth Coppinger said this would not deal with the mass non — payment of water charges.

She said the huge numbers of people who cannot afford to pay cannot be “dragged through the courts”.

People before Profit TD Richard Boyd Barrett said this was a campaign of bullying and an abuse of the democratic process to inflict the austerity agenda of the Government.

Mr Boyd Barrett said this was an attempt to undermine the popular boycott of the charges.