In view of the critical situation many businesses now find themselves in as a result of a prolonged period without trading, it is inevitable that a great many will be in commercial difficulty. While larger businesses can avail of Ireland’s examinership process, in practice this is too expensive and cumbersome for most small businesses.
Many SMEs will therefore be at the mercy of their creditors. Many of these smaller businesses would be viable, and the jobs within them could be saved, if a simpler, administrative form of examinership was available to them.
ISME believes that now is the time to put such an arrangement in place, and has made a proposal to the Minister for Business, Enterprise and Innovation to amend our current examinership provisions.
Corporate restructuring and insolvency specialist Barry Lyons has consolidated our proposal.
Barry Lyons said:
“Examinership, which is the Irish Corporate recovery process, needs to be dramatically simplified, and made cheaper and more accessible to small and medium enterprises. The main suggestion is to remove the requirement for Court oversight with the attendant costs; while leaving the process subject to judicial oversight should that be needed.”
