Kevin Humphreys (Dublin South East, Labour)

I strongly agree with Deputy Flanagan that over recent years we saw reckless lending by the banking sector and it has not yet taken responsibility. It arose in the Joint Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform this afternoon when the CEO of Permanent TSB said there would not be any witch hunt. There seems to be a witch hunt of those in debt instead of those senior executives who recklessly lent money.

I welcome this broad and comprehensive legislation and thank the Minister for the diligent work he has done on this, along with the Oireachtas Committee on Justice, Defence and Equality for its painstaking work and the staff who worked very hard in recent months to get this Bill before the House so quickly. This is a radical reform of our bankruptcy laws and is one part of the many solutions on which this Government is working to deal with the problems of unsustainable mortgage and personal debt that affect households and act as a drag on the domestic economy. Like Deputy Flanagan, we have seen people with mortgages or business loans struggling with unsustainable debt. The proposals in this legislation will help people to start working on a way forward. It is a major step towards fixing the problems this country faces. This Government has delivered across a broad range of measures: renegotiating the bank debt, yesterday's stimulus package and investment in key infrastructure, the action plan for jobs, the credit guarantee scheme and anti-corruption legislation the Minister will introduce. There is, however, more to be done. We urgently need an overhaul of the HSE and the constitutional convention in the autumn will start to build confidence in the economy, society and public services.

The priority of the Labour Party is to keep families in their homes. We are starting to deliver on this commitment. It must be remembered, however, that the provisions in this Bill have consequences for the people concerned and they must not enter into them lightly. I urge anyone looking at this to take serious advice.

I am concerned that a five year review period is far too long. I ask the Minister to consider seriously a review of the entire package within two years to ensure it is working as intended and that people are seeing benefits. The Minister has changed the personal insolvency agreement from ten years to five but if the debt relief notice, the debt settlement arrangements and the personal insolvency arrangements are not working after two years, they will not work at all. I ask the Minister to look at this much more quickly than five years and to revisit it within the first two years.

The money advice and budgeting service, MABS, has done excellent work in the debt relief notice area for many years. It has ploughed a lonely furrow with FLAC, helping people with unsustainable debt. The limit of €20,000 is too low; it should be increased to at least €30,000 if not €50,000. FLAC has published some excellent proposals on other specific issues related to debt relief notices and I ask the Minister to consider them carefully. It makes no sense to push the many people who are dealing with the MABS and have debts greater than €20,000 into seeking debt settlement agreements under which they have to engage a personal insolvency practitioner. The MABS has a good deal of experience in the management of small but unsustainable debt and has in place a national infrastructure and good governance procedure. People trust it and it has a long record in communities. We do not need to redesign the wheel in this case. The MABS has a strong role to play and I call on the Minister to consider expanding the areas in which it can work. Perhaps this might be considered on Committee Stage. I call on the Minister to examine how the personal insolvency practitioners, PIPs, are regulated and how their fees are set. This issue should be examined on Committee Stage also. This is an excellent piece of work which is long overdue. I look forward to this package of laws passing through the House.

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