Alan Shatter (Dublin South, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Yesterday evening, I was about to start replying to points made on amendments Nos. 26 and 27, which are similar in seeking to raise the value, in the context of the qualifying criteria for a debt relief notice, of a car allowed to be retained by a debtor for his needs or the needs of dependants. The limit proposed in the Bill is a value of €1,200, or greater if the vehicle has been specially adapted in the context of use by a person suffering a disability. Deputy Pádraig Mac Lochlainn would raise the limit to €3,000 while Deputy Niall Collins appears to have no limit, with the only qualification that it is appropriate to the needs of the family. I am presuming the proposal of Deputy Niall Collins excludes a Maserati or another sports car as being appropriate to needs. He puts no limit on the amount. The amendment of Deputy Niall Collins is a quite meaningless concept. Some debtors may feel if it has been part of their lives for some years to drive a Mercedes and that it is appropriate they continue to do so for their family purposes. I explained the rationale behind the proposed limit of €1,200 on Committee Stage.

As I explained during the discussion of other issues yesterday evening, it is unlikely that vehicles of a modest value would feature to any realistic degree in all of this or would be required to be sold or surrendered, unless the debtor wished to do so prior to an application for a debt relief notice or in the context of the granting of one. That outcome cannot be guaranteed, however. It is much more likely that a creditor would seize a vehicle of any significant value in payment of a debt. A car of significant value might encourage a creditor to get a court order against an individual in respect of a debt and the sheriff could be sent to seize a vehicle. The process we have for the debt relief notice is designed to provide relief to debtors and not to assist them in the continued benefit of items that cannot be afforded or might be used to repay debt. In drafting the Bill we looked at other jurisdictions, but there is much that is unique to our legislation. In Northern Ireland and Great Britain, the maximum motor vehicle value is £1,000. What we are proposing is similar.

The basic philosophy behind the legislation is that someone who is in serious debt will do what they can to realise assets and discharge their debt. That is what happens in such circumstances. Debts of up to €20,000 would largely be to local shopkeepers or credit unions, who have a particular communal benefit. Such debtors would have borrowed money or failed to pay for services or product and that failure might put in financial difficulties the people who paid for the services or product. Debts should not be written off where there is an ability to discharge them. That is a reasonable proposition. A motor vehicle of a very modest nature and of limited value may be retained, but not something of unspecified value that an individual may have been used to driving in different financial circumstances or when they had substantially overreached themselves, that was the vehicle they wanted and no assessment was made as to whether it was affordable. This is about achieving the balance. I am opposed to amendments Nos. 26 and 27.

We are also discussing amendment No. 28, which is a technical Government amendment required to improve the construction of the section as a consequence of the insertion of the proposed new subsection (iii). Government amendment No. 29 is also a technical amendment required to correct an error in the text.

See this speech in context