Jackie Cahill (Tipperary, Fianna Fail)
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427. To ask the Tánaiste and Minister for Justice and Equality if consideration is being given to an amendment to the bankruptcy legislation to allow a person on the bankruptcy register to apply for their name to be removed when their bankruptcy has concluded; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [41588/24]

Helen McEntee (Meath East, Fine Gael)
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The Bankruptcy Register is held by the Examiner’s Office, an office of the High Court. The Examiner’s Office carries out the administrative functions necessary to enable Bankruptcy applications to be listed before the Court and to carry out certain functions and administrative tasks on foot of Orders made by the Court thereafter.

Pursuant to Court Orders and Rules, a manual register of Bankruptcies has been maintained since 1922, and is now accessible online through the Courts Service website at the following link:

Under the Bankruptcy Acts, as a general rule where a person is adjudicated bankrupt his or her property will automatically vest on the date of adjudication in the Official Assignee, to be realised for the benefit of creditors.

While the bankrupt person is now, in normal course, discharged from bankruptcy after one year, any such property which has not yet been sold will, as a general rule, remain vested in the Official Assignee to be sold for the benefit of creditors.

The Bankruptcy Amendment Act 2015 introduced an exception to this general rule regarding the family home of the bankrupt person. Under this exception, the bankrupt person’s interest in their home will automatically re-vest in the bankrupt person, if the Official Assignee has not applied to Court for its sale before the third anniversary of the person being adjudicated bankrupt.

As bankruptcy adjudication means that the bankrupt person no longer owns their former property and cannot validly enter into any transactions regarding it, and because that property generally remains vested in the Official Assignee after the person is discharged from bankruptcy, the practice has been that solicitors for a purchaser of property will search on the Bankruptcy Register to verify that the vendor has not been adjudicated bankrupt.

The Courts Service cannot remove any of the entries from the Bankruptcy Register unless directed to do so by way of Court Order. There are no plans at present to amend the current operation of the register of bankruptcies.