Colm Brophy (Dublin South West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

There is a key element of having stakeholder consultation, but if there is a perceived risk, that is something that I would be very worried about. I want to understand where this is coming from. The gist of the presentation was that due to an underlying, inherently poor system of dealing with this across the EU, the Commission's proposal is a harmonisation proposal . The problem for us as a State is, having progressively implemented in recent years the more advanced process of dealing with it through legislation, ironically the harmonisation process will dilute the value of some of what we have only recently implemented. Having gone through a process of recently implemented legislation which most of us are happy with and proud of, we are at the risk of regressing, from the point of view of the Commission, to take account of member states who have made no effort to move in this direction.

That to me makes this inherently a very negative proposal for Ireland in terms of how it will impact us. I am particularly worried in the context of our own national situation on this. If a large number of EU states with very poor regulation or legislation in this area latch onto this as a step forward, ironically they get their step forward, but we by default get a step back. That is why I raised the initial concerns about this. Ms Reid's answer to Deputy O'Callaghan in terms of court and everything else really copperfastened my view that there is very little that is positive in this from an Irish perspective as it stands in terms of enhancing the current legislative way we deal with the situation. I do not think that there is anything for us in this at all because Chapter 11 is a weaker model than what the EU and Ireland would have looked at in the past. I am surprised that they have defaulted to a Chapter 11 model for their suggestions. I just want to confirm that it is a weakening for Ireland, no matter which way we look at this.