Home charge fines will be taken from pay

People who do not pay the household charge will have fines taken straight from their wages, Justice Minister Alan Shatter has confirmed.

He was responding to claims by Tánaiste Eamon Gilmore that an amendment to the Fines Act, due later this year, would not be used where people had failed to pay the €100 a year charge.

The Labour Party leader was responding to a question from Sinn Féin’s Mary Lou McDonald on whether or not the new laws would be used “to enable fines to be deducted from citizens’ wages or welfare payments” in relation to the household charge.