Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour) | Oireachtas source

There is quite an amount of detail in the section. In addition, officials will spend a couple of months writing up fairly detailed guidelines modelled on Revenue's approach to this area. I can assure the Senator that circumstances will be taken into account. The only other mechanism open to the Department at the moment is the much more cumbersome route of going to court. This will be a much easier process than taking somebody to court and will provide a much greater capacity to, hopefully, broker an agreement between the Department and the individual as to what constitutes a reasonable effort to repay the amounts due. The Department will be reasonable.