David Stanton (Cork East, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Apologies have been received from Deputies Anne Ferris and Gabrielle McFadden. The purpose of this meeting is to receive a briefing from the Insolvency Service of Ireland on the operation of the Personal Insolvency Act 2012 since it has come into force and the role of the service in ensuring insolvency cases are resolved in a timely and cost-efficient fashion, without recourse to the courts system. The briefing has been circulated.

I welcome Mr. Lorcan O'Connor, Mr. Christopher Lehane, Ms Mary Murphy and Ms Breda Horgan to the meeting. I apologise for the delay as we had some private business to discuss. The format of the meeting is that I will invite the witnesses to make an opening statement of five or ten minutes and that will be followed by a question and answer session with members. Deputy Finian McGrath has suggested that members could ask three questions and we can always come back to a member later if he or she so wishes.

Before beginning, I draw the witnesses' attention to the fact that by virtue of section 17(2)(l) of the Defamation Act 2009, witnesses are protected by absolute privilege in respect of their evidence to this committee. If they are directed by the Chair to cease giving evidence on a particular matter and they continue to so do, they are entitled thereafter only to a qualified privilege in respect of their evidence. Witnesses are directed that only evidence connected with the subject matter of these proceedings is to be given and they are asked to respect the parliamentary practice to the effect that, where possible, they should not criticise or make charges against any person, persons or entity by name or in such a way as to make him, her or it identifiable. Members should also be aware that under the salient rulings of the Chair, members should not comment on, criticise or make charges against a person outside the Houses or an official by name or in such a way as to make him or her identifiable. I ask everybody to turn off mobile phones, put them on flight mode or ensure they will not impact the sound recording system in the House.

We did much work on this issue prior to the insolvency service being established, including a report in February 2012 on the scheme of the Bill before us at that time. Members made a number of recommendations at that time, and that is one of the reasons we are revisiting the issue.