Personal Insolvency Bill
30 January 2012 10:06
The Minister for Finance Michael Noonan and Minister for Justice Alan Shatter have released details of the Personal Insolvency Bill
The proposed bill will allow individuals to emerge from bankruptcy after 3 years rather than the current 12. In Northern Ireland & Britain the insolvency period is 1 year and the government want to ensure individuals aren’t incentivised to file for bankruptcy abroad.
Mr. Shatter said “When enacted this legislation will be one of the key legislative instruments for addressing the financial difficulties of general insolvency; mortgage debt and negative equity”
Other elements of the bill are aimed at a rebalancing of interests between lenders and borrowers. These include the introduction of a debt relief certificate to allow for the full write-off of qualifying unsecured debt up to €20,000 after a one-year moratorium period.
A debt settlement arrangement for the agreed settlement of unsecured debt of more than €20,000 is also in the proposed bill.
The third measure, the personal insolvency arrangement, would cover mortgage debt. IT has been speculated that this will last some six or seven years.
The bill is at draft stage and proposals from interested parties before 1st March will be considered.
The final bill should be published before the end of April. This is a positive development to an archaic area of existing legislation.
A draft of the current bill can be found here:
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