Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The key is whether the Government can deliver legislation in time. From listening to what the Minister of State is saying, I believe there are many issues to be resolved. We will not have the legislation for at least 12 months. It is a question of whether the Government can set up, even on a voluntary basis, an arrangement that could be administered in a similar way to that of the personal insolvency advisers, who produced proposals. Over time, the Government might want to make them statutorily enforceable but, in the short term, could we move to a voluntary administrative scheme that would allow some companies to restructure and prevent the catastrophic loss of jobs? Where companies go down, people's collective agreements do not get respected, as we know from other cases. It is a question of whether the Minister of State can do something without having to pass time-consuming and tricky legislation that will not be delivered in time to address the wave of difficulty coming towards us.

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