Mr. Gary Tobin:

As the Deputy is aware, the Government has committed to supporting the Private Member's Bill and we are working to implement that. It agreed at its recent meeting, the week before last, to appoint a draftsman and prepare Committee Stage amendments to the Bill. It has been given priority status.

The Deputy is right that the Commission proposal is for credit servicing. The best way I can describe it is that the Commission proposal more or less seeks to do what the Oireachtas did in 2015 when we introduced credit servicing legislation. The Commission considered the issue of loan owners but it did not really decide to go as far as the Private Member's Bill proposes to go. The view of the Minister for Finance and the intention of the Department is to seek, as this process of discussion on the directive moves forward, to ensure that the directive when it is adopted is consistent with the Private Member's Bill. In other words, the directive will also seek to regulate loan ownership as at the moment, it does not. We will certainly press for it to go further than it does. From my experience over the past 20 years of dealing with all kinds of directives I can honestly say that a directive never ends up where it starts, as I am sure the committee is aware. More likely than not this directive will change substantially before it is agreed.

Currently, the first priority for the Commission is to get the regulation over the line. Personally, I do not see the directive being agreed any time soon. The Commission would like it all to be agreed relatively quickly but I believe that the immediate priority for the Commission will be to try to get the regulation agreed. There is probably ample opportunity for us to try to ensure our domestic legislation with the Private Members' Bill will be consistent with the ultimate directive. Quite honestly, it is likely that issues around loan ownership will arise, particularly when this directive is discussed in the European Parliament. While they are not quite in sync at the moment, I believe there is a long way to travel yet and we will certainly press the case for the directive to include loan ownership in line with the Private Members' Bill.