Alan Shatter (Dublin South, Fine Gael)

Deputies should be assured that while the Bill does not offer an easy way out, it does offer a way out by means of the proper application and implementation of the provisions contained therein.

The Bill deals with the law and procedures necessary to operate a modern personal insolvency process. While there are other matters, many of them not insignificant, connected with the problem of indebtedness, insolvency law cannot, per se, deal with them. Other relevant relief measures are being developed by the Minister for Finance, the Minister for Social Protection and the Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government. The focus of this Bill is, by definition, confined to insolvency. It is not, however, solely concerned with those who are currently in financial difficulties. Rather, it is about dealing in the future with those who find themselves in difficulty for a wide variety of reasons and providing a new legal architecture that will facilitate addressing those difficulties in a proportionate and fair manner as between debtors and creditors.

There is much work to be done in a limited amount of time in finalising not only the text of the Bill but in putting in place the required administrative and operational guidelines and in the establishment of the new insolvency service. The benefit of the Bill is that it will assist in bringing some peace of mind to those debtors who are at their wit's end and fearing there is no hope. That is a very serious consideration in view of the research showing that financial difficulties can be a contributing factor in respect of suicides. In that context, I am obliged to comment on the extraordinary contribution by Deputy Eamon Ó Cuív.

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