The government wants your views on the Personal Insolvency Bill!

This Bill is unusual in that a fairly details Heads of the Bill or Scheme has been published. In their press release, the government said

Any submissions received by 1st March from interested parties will also be taken into consideration in the further development of the Bill by the Attorney Generals Office in consultation with the Department of Justice and Equality and the Department of Finance.

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I understand that this is not just empty talk and that the Department of Justice would really welcome suggestions.


I would actively encourage you all to make personal, separate submissions on the Bill. These submissions are well worth making. They will be read and considered and good ideas may well be taken on board.

I will be making my own separate submission, which I may well post here first.

There are many cases of mortgage arrears on Askaboutmoney and regular users who reply to these have a great store of knowledge which would be very useful in framing the final legislation.

Some of you may be reluctant to make a public submission, but I would be happy to submit a "consolidated" submission of comments made to the Department of Justice. As a discussion forum, Askaboutmoney does not itself take a stand on such issues, but if ideas are put forward, I will summarise those ideas and the responses to them.

There have been some comments such as "this legislation is designed for the banks". The banks are, of course, lobbying. But if you don't make submissions yourselves, then these criticisms are weakened.

Procedure
Start a new thread on as specific an issue as possible.
Ideally formulate it in a way in which I could copy and paste it into a submission.

I watched an interesting pod cast by George Lee on this issue. One thing that was surprising was that Alan Shatter said that the reason for 3 years versus 1 year is that in the UK they feel 1 year is incorrect. Is he correct? Also noticed that Shatter was incorrect in inferring that one solitary case (Sean Quinn) meant that now nobody would go down the UK route. That was a very particular decision.

Personally if the UK rules work, which they seem to do, then, why one earth not just copy them lock stock and barrel?

The new bill is welcome, reform is badly needed. We need to get people to go back to becoming productive people in society. But Ireland is small. If you go bankrupt, and your creditors see you up and running again it could lead to resentment or worse. One of the creditors on the programme had an interesting suggestion, that if he was back up in business and making profit that maybe he could be taxed at a higher rate to repay his creditors.

In relation to the bill itself, it's set up as 3 separate areas/divisions, is that necessary, why not have the same procedures and admin ? I completely disagree with bankers having the right of veto. Either you can pay your bills or you cannot.

Hi Bronte

Some interesting points there.

I think most people consider the one year to be too short and the existing 12 years too long.

If I was facing bankruptcy, I would probably still go to the UK, and go for the one year option, although that would not suit others.

What I haven't really got a satisfactory answer to is why it's three years for bankruptcy and 6 years for the Personal Insolvency Arrangements and Debt Settlement Arrangements.

I have been invited to address the Oireachtas Justice Committee on the bill next Wednesday.

Brendan

Brendan Burgess said:

If I was facing bankruptcy, I would probably still go to the UK, and go for the one year option, although that would not suit others.

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Me too, the bill seems very cumbersome and bureaucratic. If one were to make the drastic decision of bankruptycy than the clarity of the UK rules would win hands down. Plus it seems very easy to apply for, easily sorted and adminstered and you have finality.

In Ireland we will just go on and on with this, it will eventually be brought it and then we'll have a couple of court challenges and maybe a constitutional referendum (property rights were mentioned somewhere else on this forum).

Personally this bill and horse and bolted come to mind. But it is to be welcomed. No time line on it though, why not? I'm getting the feeling that the 'fact' of the new bill is going to put a lot of people on hold for another 2 to 3 years having waivered about 4 or 5 up to now.

Just to add I was surprisingly impressed with the man from New Beginnings, young and smart and positive and willing to try something new. Ciaran Maguire I think. Oireachtas would do worse than calling him in as well, he would be an expert on hard cases one presumes having dealt with and seen some of the desparate people in the four courts.

Hi Bronte

Yes. New Beginnings are presenting as well.

But they presented their scheme to the Finance Committee before and gave no detail, because their proposals are unworkable. I don't know if they are still pushing them.

Brendan

Brendan Burgess said:

Yes. New Beginnings are presenting as well.

But they presented their scheme to the Finance Committee before and gave no detail, because their proposals are unworkable. I don't know if they are still pushing them.

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I forgot about that thread, but one of their proposals has been experimented with with Cluid housing agency (?) the Department of the Environment, GE money and social welfare. It's on another thread here.

What might be interesting to present is a snapshot of actual cases from on here, the mess people are in, the debt, the difficulty of dealing with creditors.

We often advise people to contact Mabs, but we have no feedback on the efficiency of Mabs. I'd like to know from Mabs if they deal with all debt of a person, get them on a budget, get interest penalties written off andagree payment plans with all creditors.

There seems to be other agencies operating for a fee, but there seems to be no regulation (frost mentioned it recently) and it is not at all clear what these companies do.

Sorry if this isn't exactly the insolvency bill, but it's all interlinked and what is and is not working should be examined.

The point re MABS made above is an interesting one. Accepting that it off the direct topic of the proposed Insolvency Bill, it may be well worth while opening up a separate thread on the issue.