Mr. Lorcan O'Connor:

I will go through an example. Let us say that on 1 August a debtor states that he wants to consider his options, including whether to avail of a personal insolvency arrangement or a debt settlement arrangement. The person will go to the ISI website and see a list of authorised practitioners. That list should grow day by day throughout August. He or she will contact a practitioner by telephone and arrange to meet. The practitioner may contact the person in advance to advise him or her to bring certain supporting documentation in order to ensure the meeting is efficient. The practitioner will have a statutory duty to go through various stages in the process of assessing the situation. In effect, the practitioner will carry out a financial health check on the debtor's position. Having done that, the practitioner will go through the various options that may be available to the debtor, one of which might be to try to do a deal directly with the bank. That would be most likely if all the amount the debtor owes is to a single bank. It may be achievable to go down that route. In other situations, the practitioner might simply say that if the person adjusts his or her expenditure, he or she may be able to meet a rescheduled set of repayments, and so on.