Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)

We welcome the publication yesterday of the personal insolvency Bill and are gratified that it takes on board many of the suggestions we made in the legislation we brought before the Oireachtas before Christmas. It shows that this Oireachtas can really work if everybody is given an opportunity to have an input into legislation. However, we are concerned about the proposals in that it leaves the involvement of the banks in respect of secure debt as optional. Our proposal was radically different in that regard. It is fair to say that the Tánaiste pointed out many times in the past four years that leaving issues to the discretion of the banks is a bad idea but effectively what we are getting in these proposals is light touch legislation.

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