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

I wish to briefly point out to Deputy Donnelly one issue which he has missed, which is that the debtor will not in these circumstances be walking into the bank faced by the bank's lawyers and bank manager pointing out the section, because the personal insolvency practitioner will be the expert and intermediary and will be able to, when speaking to the creditors, deal with any threats that might be made and put them in context. I wish to point this out because it is an important issue. We all know people are intimidated by their bank managers and banks, and they are fearful. They feel very dependent and are very concerned and, on occasion, so stressed they are unable to engage in a way that is of assistance to themselves. This is the importance of the personal insolvency practitioner, an individual who sits down with the debtor and goes through income, assets, liabilities and resources and engages with the creditors and puts together a plan. If a financial institution is unco-operative, it may not be possible to conclude a personal insolvency arrangement.

If there is a level of co-operation, however - what I would describe as snarling co-operation over-embedded with threats - it will become apparent at an early stage in this process that is the way financial institutions are dealing with this.

This Government is a lot more resilient than the Deputy is suggesting and I do not think we are going to have a general election in the next one to two years. I cannot predict how long I will be in this post. No Minister should ever predict how long they will be in any post, but I am articulating Government policy, not just my personal preference. It is Government policy that the financial institutions engage constructively and that there has to be, in appropriate circumstances, genuine engagement which may involve debt forgiveness. If we find in the early operation of this legislation that either no financial institution is willing to engage in that manner or that only one or two do so and no one else will, it will not take me 18 months to come in here with amending legislation. It will not happen that way. I wanted to say that because it is important.

We do have to get experience of how this works for some months at least. We must also see what place creditors, including secured creditors, are in after the legislation is enacted. In the context of the reports the Deputy gives of comments made this afternoon in a committee of this House by one individual, I would find such comments very disappointing and not reflective of the public interest. It is important that individual should give greater consideration to the proper workings of this legislation because if there is a lack of co-operation we have a remedy in this House to deal with that.

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