Insolvency Service of Ireland protocol to speed up debt deals

The Insolvency Service of Ireland has reached an agreement with lenders and agents acting on behalf of a new Personal Insolvency Application (PIA) protocol which sets out the standards that creditors and Personal Insolvency Practicioners (PIPs) can expect from each other.

Under the protocol compliant arrangement banks and PIPs using the insolvency process will only use agreed documentation and standard terms and conditions when dealing with PIAs and all have committed “to high level principles” set out in the protocol.

The ISI said that having established protocols was in line with international best practice but added that the Republic was “the first jurisdiction to deal with secured and unsecured debt” through agreed protocols.

In order to develop the new templates, a Debt Solutions Protocol Steering Group was established by the ISI and views were sought from creditors, PIPS as well as consumer and debtor representatives.

The confirmation of the PIA protocol follows the previous publication of the Debt Settlement Arrangement (DSA) protocol. The two protocols will make it easier for debtors to make informed decisions when working with creditors to ultimately achieve successful debt repayment outcomes.

For Personal Insolvency Practitioners the agreement means there will be no need to develop their own terms and conditions. This reduces the amount of time spent on proposal formation and allows the practitioner to concentrate on actively working with creditors on behalf of debtors.

“We have a roadmap,” said the head of the ISI Lorcan O’Connor. “We have agreed dozens of pages of small print and a standardised packet of documents which can be used in all applications. This means that in the future all the banks will need to think about is the commercial realities behind a decision. It should speed up the whole process”