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

Amendment No. 2 amends the definition of security in section 2 in order to provide clarity in relation to the status of guarantees or pledges of the type referred to in section 35(8) of the Credit Union Act 1997. There has been some confusion as to whether such guarantees or pledges should or should not be capable of constituting security for the purposes of the Bill.

The new definition provides that a reference to a secured creditor, for the purposes of Part 3 of the Bill, does not include a creditor whose only security in respect of a debt comprises a guarantee of the debt, including a guarantee of the type referred to in section 35(8) of the Credit Union Act 1997. Such an amendment is appropriate as the policy intention of the Bill is that credit unions should be treated the same as other creditors for the purposes of the new insolvency processes.

Amendment No. 132 addresses the issue of set off in relation to credit unions savings. The policy intention is that a debtor's savings with a credit union should be set off against any borrowings from that credit union for the purposes of the debt relief notice, debt settlement arrangement or personal insolvency arrangement process. This is a commonsense and obvious provision and it is important that there is no ambiguity in relation to it.