Shatter has said the legislation will be brought to the Dail before the summer, that will be June. Then we have the long summer holidays and then they will be back to debate it. This one looks like it's going to be very complex, not going to do the job properly and open to all sorts of legal challenges when it does become law and fees to experts no doubt all along the way. Don't hold our breath Triciamonty.
The Debt relief cert will be fairly straight forward. Also as far as fees are concerned, the approved intermediary will NOT be allowed to charge the applicant a fee, it's in the bill. Any fees applicable to an intermediary would be payable from the fee nominated by the Insolvency Service to cover the costs.
In the UK, a DRO costs £90, and approved intermediaries get a slice of this to cover their costs, so it's not exorbitant there, but then again, it only lasts 12 months in the UK, therefore little costs to supervise. I don't think that the DOJ has considered this in making these amendments to the bill (with obvious involvement from the IBF).
The changes put forward to the debt relief cert, changing it from 1 year to 3 years will mean much more unnecessary supervisory costs, which will mean the cert itself will cost the applicant much more to apply for it.
The fact that it's three years will make it inoperable for the Insolvency service, given the fact 1) the applicant has means of less than €60 per month and therefore cannot afford a large fee and 2) The state will have to fund the supervision of the applicant for the term by the intermediary.
Given the associated costs, it should not go further than 12 months. Thousands will be applying for this, and unless the banking federation are planning on paying for the supervision of all of these applicants, it should be revised back down to 12 months.