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

I can advise the Deputy that as of 1 November 2013, a total of 72 personal insolvency practitioners are currently authorised by the Insolvency Service of Ireland, ISI. In addition, as of the same date, 18 Money Advice and Budgeting Service, MABS, companies, representing 47 individuals, are authorised to act as approved intermediaries. The location and contact details of approved intermediaries and personal insolvency practitioners are publicly available on the relevant registers on the ISI's website, www.isi.gov.ie. It is expected that the number of authorised approved intermediaries and personal insolvency practitioners will increase further over the coming months.

It might be noted that the ISI has added a statistics page to its website which provides key information such as the number of approved practitioners, the number of information requests to the ISI and associated pertinent information. I am advised that the statistics page will be updated on a monthly basis and I would encourage Deputies to consult that page in order to get the latest information.

The ISI began accepting applications for the three new debt relief solutions introduced by the Personal Insolvency Act 2012, as amended, on 9 September 2013. The ISI is currently processing a number of applications. As I have previously advised the Deputy, the ISI has stated that, in the interest of confidentiality, it will not be providing details or breakdowns of the numbers of applications for the various debt relief solutions received or being processed at this time. The ISI fully intends to provide quarterly statistics once a statistically meaningful number of applications have been processed.

During the course of the Personal Insolvency Bill's passage through the Oireachtas, I originally indicated provisional estimates of applications in one full year of operation of the three new debt relief solutions to be 15,000 for debt settlement arrangements and personal insolvency arrangements and 3,000 to 4,000 for debt relief notices.

It is a welcome development that the Circuit Court recently issued the first protective certificate for a debt settlement arrangement. As the Deputy will be aware, debt settlement arrangements and personal insolvency arrangements are conducted in a two-stage process. The protective certificate at stage one offers a 70-day window for practitioners to develop a proposal to the satisfaction of the debtor and creditors. This means that the first debt settlement arrangements and personal insolvency arrangements will issue in the near future, that is, approximately 70 days after a protective certificate has issued.

Additional information not given on the floor of the House

The Deputy refers to completed cases in his question. However, given the nature of the processes involved, cases will not actually be completed by the end of the year as the arrangements in question are processes that can range in duration from three years up to seven years. It is important to note that as soon as the protective certificate issues, debtors are protected from any action that creditors, subject to the protective certificate, may be inclined to take.

The ISI continues to engage with key stakeholders on a number of issues and is working on standardising a personal insolvency arrangement template, establishing a complaints panel for complaints of improper conduct by personal insolvency practitioners, establishing a personal insolvency practitioner education oversight committee and personal insolvency forum facilitation, the integration of the Office of the Official Assignee and is preparing for the anticipated increase in bankruptcy cases.

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