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

I am anxious to be practical, but I am conscious that we are both an urban and a rural society and that many more people lived in rural Ireland before there were as many vehicles on the road as there are now. Where someone is entering a system in which €20,000 of debt may be, effectively, written off to afford them an opportunity of a new start, they must take reasonable steps to realise assets to discharge a portion of the debt.

We had a constructive engagement on the issue we discussed last evening. I have undertaken to address that issue in the Seanad and to come back then to this House. I am not disposed, however, to revisit this figure. It is important that Deputies Collins and Mac Lochlainn do what they are doing and that we tease out the Bill. I am conscious, however, that all their amendments seem to be about increasing the value of items people in serious debt retain while having no regard at all to the position of creditors. As Minister, I must ensure there is a balance.

I know there is no monopoly of wisdom in these matters. In the neighbouring jurisdiction of Northern Ireland, the vehicle value was fixed, relatively recently, at £1,000. I am not persuaded that we should do something different here. We are not likely to see a creditor making an issue of whether a vehicle is worth €1,200 or €1,500. If, however, one expects to have €20,000 of debt written off, one must make a real effort, based on the assets one has, to discharge debt where one can genuinely do so. We can argue about dividing lines on this issue, but I will stick to the provisions in the Bill. I envisage, however, that after the first year we will get a sense of how the legislation is working in practice and what difficulties are arising. If changes are required, I will not be slow to introduce them to ensure that we achieve the objectives of the legislation.

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