Niall Collins (Limerick, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I move amendment No. 4:

In page 3, between lines 10 and 11, to insert the following:“Amendment of section 16 of Principal Act

2.Section 16 of the Principal Act is amended by the insertion of the following new subsection after subsection (2):

“(2A) Where a Debt Relief Notice, a Debt Settlement Arrangement or a Personal Insolvency Arrangement as outlined in the Principal Act is rejected by a majority of creditors, this information will be included in the Annual Report of the Insolvency Service of Ireland.”.”.

I have resubmitted this amendment which was tabled on Committee Stage. This is a new authority in respect of which there were many issues in the primary legislation. We are back today to work out the teething problems. One of the big lessons we have learned in listening to people in our clinics and reading the newspapers and I learned when I attended a sitting of the Circuit Court in Limerick on a home repossession day concerns the absence of public information on the workings of and the service provided by the Insolvency Service of Ireland.

Every opportunity should be taken to make information available to the public. First, there is a challenge to let the public, particularly those who are in financial distress, know the Insolvency Service of Ireland is available to help them. Second, for those who are aware of that, we need to let them know about its processes and how it works. The amendment states: "Where a Debt Relief Notice, a Debt Settlement Arrangement or a Personal Insolvency Arrangement as outlined in the Principal Act is rejected by a majority of creditors, this information will be included in the Annual Report". This would go a long way towards providing that information to the public and would help create debate, which would help promote public awareness of the service that is available.

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