Mr. Conor O'Mahony:

No. I was referring to a slightly different issue, namely, situations in which the directors of a company convene a liquidator's meeting but do not nominate a liquidator, the creditors do not nominate a liquidator and the resolution is passed putting the company into liquidation but no liquidator is appointed. There is then what one might call a zombie liquidation in place, there is nobody there to prepare a report for us and the normal supervisory role etc. does not flow from that. That is a different situation from what the Senator is talking about. What he is talking about is insolvent companies that are not liquidated and are effectively just left to whither on the vine and usually, eventually, are struck off. In respect of that category of companies, we have a very specific enforcement programme. There is a particular provision of the 2014 Act, section 842(h), not to get too technical about it, which states that if one allows a company to be struck off the register with debts, one is liable to be disqualified. We have an active programme for dealing with those companies. We have in the past three years disqualified more than 60 directors who have been guilty, if one likes, of allowing that situation to arise. We do not go after all companies because some companies might have relatively modest debts or we might not be aware of significant debts. However, once we have evidence that there is a reasonably high level of debts, we will pursue disqualification against directors who allow that to happen. The Company Law Review Group has looked at a separate issue. In 2017 work was also done by the then chairman of the Labour Court, if I am not mistaken, on how the social welfare system deals with such situations, trying to ensure that people who have lost their jobs by virtue of a company ceasing to trade will be given access to the Social Insurance Fund and the protections that flow from that. That particular dimension is not within our remit but, as I said, we do have a programme for dealing with companies that end up being struck off and do not go through a liquidation process at all. That is a different scenario. I hope that clarifies the matter.