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

The current provisions regarding the debt relief notice, DRN, and personal insolvency arrangement, PIA, in sections 35(1)(e), 96(1)(f) and 116(3)(f) - but not as regards the debt settlement arrangement process in sections 62(1)(c) and 79(3)(e) - prevent a hire purchase creditor from repossessing hire purchase goods while a DRN or, as applicable, a protective certificate or PIA is, in effect, in respect of the debtor. This would be the case even though title to the hire purchase goods would remain vested in the hire purchase creditor and is not passed to the debtor. This could obviously lead to anomalous results where a debtor retains possession of hire purchase goods and refuses to make payments and where the creditor is prevented by the legislation from repossessing those goods until the end of the three-year supervision period relating to the DRN or, as applicable, the end of the period in respect of the protective certificate or PIA.

Amendments Nos. 46, 55 and 59 are designed to bring the DRN and PIA provisions into line with debt settlement arrangements in order to ensure that hire purchase creditors will not be unduly prevented from repossessing hire purchase goods from defaulting debtors. Amendment No. 65 to section 96 and amendment No. 67 to section 116 are related technical drafting measures to ensure consistency in the legislation.