Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Independent) | Oireachtas source

At 9 p.m. this evening the Government will vote down a Bill that could save thousands of companies and tens of thousands of jobs. The Bill would do so without the need to spend a single penny in public money. Every year hundreds of companies in Ireland are shut down that do not need to be because we do not have a functioning examinership process. This is how badly it is broken.

In the past three years, 4,700 companies have declared insolvency in Ireland and of them only 64 have availed of the examinership process. Many of those companies could have been saved and in other countries they would have been; here, they are instead forced into liquidation and all jobs are lost. I have an estimate from somebody who works in examinerships that approximately a quarter of insolvencies could be brought through a proper insolvency process. That means that over the past three years, well over 1,000 viable Irish companies have shut down because they do not have recourse to examinership that is fit for purpose.

The Companies (Amendment) Bill 2014 makes examinership a real option for struggling companies. It makes it cheaper and faster and it cuts legal fees for the examiner by approximately €50,000 while maintaining judicial oversight and authority. The main concern raised last night by the Minister, Deputy Bruton, and several Fine Gael backbenchers is the belief that this Bill would place an unfair burden on creditors. They were speaking in particular about smaller unsecured creditors like suppliers. The Bill would do no such thing. Under the current examinership process, creditors do not often go to court, and if they do, they must choose to go, hire lawyers and pay for them. With this Bill creditors can go to court any time they want and again they would have to hire and pay lawyers. They would go for the same reasons they do now. What would change with this Bill is that the examiner would not have to keep going to court for largely procedural and unnecessary reasons. He or she would not have to keep hiring lawyers. This would leave more money in the company which, critically, would leave more money for creditors.

Companies all over Ireland are screaming for a viable examinership process, which this Bill provides. Creditors want this Bill to pass because it would leave more money in the company and therefore more money for them. The Small Firms Association, which represents companies which would go through examinership and their suppliers, wants this Bill to pass. The only group that does not want the Bill to pass is this Government. Why is that?

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