On 25 January 2012 the Government approved and published the heads of the proposed Personal Insolvency Bill.
This draft Bill proposes the introduction of three non-judicial debt settlement arrangements and a reform of the existing bankruptcy regime. The new arrangements will allow for the write down or restructuring of both secured and unsecured debt owed by certain eligible individuals.
The Draft Bill provides for three separate non-judicial debt settlement arrangements designed to offer an alternative to bankruptcy namely
- Debt Relief Certificates ("DRC") in respect of unsecured debt up to €20,000;
- Debt Settlement Agreements ("DSA") in respect of unsecured debt above €20,000; and
- Personal Insolvency Arrangements ("PIA") in respect of secured and unsecured debt up to €3,000,000.
The existing Bankruptcy procedures would also be changed including the reduction of the period of discharge from 12 to 3 years.
The Bill itself was due to be published at the end of April but this has now been pushed back to end June 2012.
