Mr. Lorcan O'Connor:

This is an issue we have seen in a large number of cases. Quite often a tenant might have several debts such as credit card debt, an overdraft, a personal loan or whatever it might be. These are people knocking on the door making demands. In addition, the landlord is saying the tenant owes him or her several hundred euro every month. The difficulty is the tenant is robbing Peter to pay Paul or just cannot pay all of his or her debts. What a personal insolvency practitioner can do is issue a protective certificate. This stops everyone from making contact with the tenant. If a creditor were to phone the tenant or even issue a letter of demand, that creditor would be breaking the law. This gives comfort to the debtor, who no longer has worries in that regard and the personal insolvency practitioner then can make his or her debts sustainable. Within that, they will always allow sufficient moneys to keep a roof over the person's head.

Therefore, let us suppose a person pays rent of €700 per month. They will allow that person to retain €700 per month before he has to offer anything to his creditors. The average write-off of unsecured debt is in the region of 80% to 90%. It a significant help to people who are renting.