Paschal Mooney (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I am unsure. He may not be doing it at all. It is simply that I have several other questions relating to this and I was afraid that it might be withdrawn and that would terminate the discussion.

In deciding to make the change from 12 years to three years, why have we not come into line with the United Kingdom? I put the question because the dogs in the street know that there has been a succession of high-profile and not-so-high-profile people who have travelled across the Irish Sea, established their bona fides under United Kingdom law and been discharged as bankrupts after one year. I do not intend to name them because we all know who they are. For the life of me I do not understand it given the close nature of jurisprudence between Britain and Ireland. We share a common law system and many other areas of the law. I am baffled by the solution of the drafters of the legislation. Clearly the Minister has given his imprimatur to it. Why did the Minister not go the whole hog and simply go with one year?

There is a culture in the United States that is something of a cliché at this stage. The idea is that one needs to have been made bankrupt at least twice or three times and one needs to have failed in one's businesses on several occasions before reaching the age of 30 years and then one becomes a multimillionaire and creates a business that will expand to the point where there is vast employment. In other words, business failure is not seen as failure in the American entrepreneurial business culture. Whereas here, despite or in spite of what has happened in recent years this is not the case. I have much sympathy for anyone who ends up in the bankruptcy courts, but I realise it is not popular to single out those who made a great deal of money from being creative during the Celtic tiger years. However when one boils it down, these people took a risk. One can question their motives until the cows come home but they are people who took a risk.

They are people who took a risk. They were part of the entrepreneurial class or they joined it because they felt they had something creative to offer and whether it was for their own gain is irrelevant to this particular argument. This country and this economy needs people who are prepared to take a risk, to put their money where their mouth is and to go the extra mile. If it means they have ended up becoming hugely successful, financially, surely the benefits of it to the wider economy outweigh any issues of morality that people might have. Some have stood on the high moral ground on many occasions in casting judgment on such people. I know I am walking an extremely thin line here because I share the anger of the general public about the fact that there are people who have patently contributed to the economic disaster that has befallen this country who have yet to answer for their actions but who will, I hope, come before our courts in the fullness of time.

I wished to elaborate on the context in which I am raising this issue and I am sorry if I have spoken for too long on the matter. Essentially, it boils down to the question as to why there is a difference between the English and Irish laws on bankruptcy and why this difference will continue. The people who have been declared bankrupt in the UK will be back in business within 12 months and the chances are that some of them will resurrect their careers, generate money and, by extension, generate jobs. However, the jobs and the money will be in the British economy, not in the Irish one. That is why I am curious about this issue.

I welcome the Minister's remarks regarding revisiting the proposed amendment on Report Stage but is he saying that much of what is in the proposal relating to the amendment has not been clear enough? The Minister seems to be suggesting that he will bring a degree of clarity to the legislation so that when somebody is declared as being discharged as a bankrupt, he or she will be effectively discharged.