Mr. Lorcan O'Connor:

I will answer the questions in the order they were asked. The Deputy's first question relates to the number and geographic spread of personal insolvency practitioners. I think it is important to understand where we are in the process of receiving applications. The regulation setting out the qualitative requirements of a practitioner were published at the end of June. The regulations in terms of what is required in terms of handling client moneys and other areas were only published last week. While there was the ability for some to apply while waiting to see the final piece of the jigsaw, others may well have waited until this week to apply. The number of applicants in the Minister's reply to the question tabled by the Deputy was probably true 24 hours ago, but I can now say the number has risen to over 100. As the Deputy can see, we are starting to get to a certain volume in the number of applications.

I referred earlier to the courses that we have looked to the various professional bodies to provide. They have told me that several hundred people attended the first tranche of courses. I also asked them how many of those who attended went to the further stage of sitting the exam, and again, several hundred did so. I would be confident of the numbers over time, but I would like to manage expectations. We will not have the critical mass on 1 August, but over a number of weeks I believe we will get to the point at which we have a good geographic spread and a sufficient number of practitioners.

I should also state that the headline number of authorised practitioners may not necessarily give an accurate reflection of the capacity within the personal insolvency practitioner industry. The reason is that some practitioners may be sole practitioners, in its truest form, and they are likely to be dealing with a couple of dozen cases in a given year, but other practitioners are likely to invest heavily in this area in order to deal with a higher volume of cases while maintaining fees at a low level and so on. Therefore, if one is not aware of the mix of practitioners, it does not give a good guide as to the actual capacity.

The reason I cannot give the Deputy a definitive date is that the moment I have confidence that everything has been lined up and we are ready, we will go. We will not wait a further day. In my opening statement I said we would be ready in mid-August, which to me means within the first couple of weeks of August. I will do everything to ensure it is as early as possible; however, because everything is in flux and we are trying to do it all as quickly as possible, I do not have a specific date.

The Deputy is correct that the legal service went to tender. That has no bearing on when we will be in a position to accept applications. Our role in terms of assessing a case that comes into the ISI is to ensure it is in compliance with the legislation. That is very much an operational challenge for the ISI. There is no legal input into that. We would require a legal adviser, as any organisation would, in terms of our ongoing business. It would have no bearing on the applications.