Frances Fitzgerald (Dublin Mid West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I appreciate the intention of the amendment which seeks to ensure information about credit refusals is publicly available. However, given the recent changes, I do not believe the amendment is necessary or workable in its current form for the following reasons. As the Deputy is aware, since the first quarter of this year, the Insolvency Service of Ireland already publishes details, on a quarterly basis, of debt settlement arrangements and personal insolvency arrangements which have been voted down by creditors. While the Deputy was calling for that information to be made available on an annual basis, it is now available on a quarterly basis and I understand more information will be published tomorrow by the Insolvency Service of Ireland. As the Deputy knows, there is also the annual report, which goes into huge detail on the DRNs and PRAs, the amount of debt that is being dealt with by the ISI, the number of bankruptcies and so on. Very detailed information is now available.

Debt relief notices would not fall to be included in the proposed amendment, since the Personal Insolvency Act does not provide for a creditor vote for this type of arrangement. As I explained when I was increasing the thresholds, the DRN is a limited write-down of unsecured debt for persons with very little income or assets which is approved directly by the court. A creditor can object to the court but no creditor vote is required because of the very specific and limited nature of this debt solution.

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