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

These are technical drafting amendments required to improve the presentation of the Personal Insolvency Act 2012 and to correct errors in the text. Amendment No. 39 is an interpretation provision for the proposed new Part 8 of the Bill. Part 8 provides for a number of amendments to the 2012 Act. Many of the amendments are technical in nature and address errors in the existing text or improve the construction of the text.

Amendment No. 40 to section 8 of the 2012 Act amends the current requirement for two signatures to authenticate the seal of the insolvency services by now providing that either the signature of the director or a member of staff of the insolvency service authorised by the director to act on his or her behalf will suffice.

Amendment No. 41 changes the mandatory requirement of section 13(1) of the 2012 Act to a discretionary one. It has come to light that the current construction used in the Act is not appropriate for the requirements of the insolvency service. I am advised that the best approach is for the service to have discretion in regard to this matter.

Amendment No. 42 is a technical drafting amendment recommended by the Office of the Parliamentary Counsel to better describe a qualifying debt for the purposes of interpreting Chapter 1 which deals with debt relief notices of Part 3 of the Act.

Amendment No. 51 is a technical drafting amendment required to address an error in section 54 of the Personal Insolvency Act. Amendment No. 53 is a technical drafting amendment required to address an error in section 59 of the Act. I am advised by Parliamentary Counsel that the proposed amendment is required for consistency with similar provisions elsewhere in the Act.

Amendment No. 56 is a technical drafting amendment required to address the cross-referencing error in section 65. Amendment No. 57 is a technical drafting amendment required to improve the construction of section 72(1). The current text is repetitious as there is no need to repeat the purpose of the meeting as this is set out in section 70(1). The proposed amendment is modelled on the nearly equivalent section 109.

Amendment No. 58 proposed the deletion of section 73(3) which refers to voting by preferential creditors in the context of a debt settlement arrangement. No such provision exists in respect of the personal insolvency arrangement. I am of the view that this provision has no practical effect as a preferential debt is defined in relation to the Bankruptcy Act 1988 and in the DSA context this can only be a social welfare employee entitlement type debt or Revenue debt, such will either be an excluded debt or excludable debt, which, if the creditor consents, becomes a committed debt and is voted at the creditors meeting. The concept of preferentiality imported from the Bankruptcy Act has no real role here.

Amendment No. 66 is a technical drafting amendment required to address an error in section 102 of the Personal Insolvency Act. It makes clear it is the appropriate court not the insolvency service which issues the protective certificates.

Amendment No. 71 is also a technical drafting amendment required to address an error in section 194 of the Act which referred incorrectly to specialty judge instead of specialist judge.