Michael Noonan (Limerick City, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I move amendment No. 3:

In page 3, line 27, to delete "person" and substitute "creditor".

Amendments Nos. 5, 8 and 9 are also in my name. I do not propose to accept amendment No. 7. Amendment No. 3 and the first part of amendment No. 5 are technical in nature and deal with the definition of the term "creditor". The amendments are intended to ensure the Bill covers only credit as issued by those in the business of lending and does not cover loans made between family, friends, etc. Without these amendments, a person who issues credit casually or outside the business would need an authorisation to service this credit.

Amendment No. 7 in the name of Deputy Tóibín is a cognate amendment and has, therefore, been included in this group, although it appears to be related to the regulation of owners, which was discussed when we debated the previous group. The Deputy's amendment would remove the exclusion in section 1(f) for owners who take certain limited actions in respect of credit owned by them. As I have made clear in previous discussions on this topic, this issue has been given much consideration. I outlined on Second Stage that the best protection will be accorded consumers if credit servicing firms, rather than owners, are regulated.

My objective is to regulate the activity of credit servicing. I do not propose to regulate ownership unless the owner is undertaking credit servicing or an activity that would result in a prescribed contravention if it were undertaken by a regulated firm. However, if the owner does not appoint a regulated credit servicing firm to service the credit, the owner must be authorised and regulated. While owners will be able to make certain decisions regarding loan books, such decisions will have to be implemented by a regulated credit service. Therefore, the owner will be able to make high level decisions without the need to be authorised, provided these decisions do not result in the borrower being deprived of the protection which would apply if the decisions had been taken by a regulated firm.

In addition, the purpose of amendment No. 20, which will be discussed later, is to impose a new statutory obligation on owners not to instruct a regulated credit servicing firm to do anything which would be a prescribed contravention if undertaken by a regulated retail credit firm. There is also an obligation on the credit servicing firm not to implement such an instruction. This provision will prevent owners from doing things we do not want them to do and ensure there is no way for such an instruction to be implemented. As such, I reject amendment No. 7.

On the definition of the term "prescribed contravention" in amendment No. 5, which term is also referred to in amendment No. 9, this is a technical amendment as there are now two references to "prescribed contravention" in the Bill. The definition in the 1942 Act remains unchanged.