It’s hard to delete a contact from your phone, even after their death. Contacts are the lifeblood for journalists. They’re how you collect and check information, so the reluctance to delete a number is understandable. But there’s far more to it than that; there is something very final about deleting a name. His number is still on my phone as it has been for several years now.

Before then, his was one of the many numbers I would call if I heard some rumour about a big business or property deal, and wanted to see if I could stand the story up. He was well informed, a gossip and funny – an attractive combination for a reporter working the phones for a story.

His was the number that appeared on my phone as it rang just before Christmas 2008. The wipe-out in Anglo Irish Bank’s share price was almost complete. He sounded tense. One of his managers at Anglo had been plaguing him with calls.

The value of his commercial properties had fallen and the banker told him he was in breach of the loan-to-value covenant. This was the part of his loan agreement which stated he would have to invest more cash if the value fell below a certain level.

“I told them to f*** off,” said the man. Despite the reduced value, the rent was the same and it was covering the interest due on the loan, he said he had told Anglo.

He asked me a few times if the share prices of the banks would rise again. It wasn’t looking likely, I said. It seemed like he wanted to hear a different answer.

His was the number that appeared on my phone some time later. It gave me a jolt. I was abroad and several time zones away. Just before the call, a friend had texted to say that the man had taken his life the previous day. So why was his number calling my phone? It was his wife. I did not know her but she knew me; her husband had occasionally talked about me. She was upset with how the media had reported his death and wanted someone to write something about what he was really like, the man he was before that act.

Nobody can begin to understand the inner torment of someone who makes a decision like that. His growing financial problems may have played a big role or no role in his death – no one will really know.

Reporting of Hugh O’Regan death

The initial, erroneous reporting of the death of publican and hotelier Hugh O’Regan from natural causes as a suicide on certain websites last week was a rush to the macabre, a hasty and false presumption of “oh no, not another” and an example of the “publish first, check later (or not at all)” approach taken by some internet users and particularly on social media.

His friends took what little comfort they could when it was later confirmed he had died of natural causes, a heart attack, while walking along the N11 road at Newtownmountkennedy in Co Wicklow.

Those friends spoke admiringly of his many achievements creating such landmark pubs, bars and the Morrison Hotel.

They also spoke of how his banks turned on him from 2008 when they lost faith in his plans for a philanthropic club on St Stephen’s Green and a hotel at Kilternan in Dublin, and how a final loan that could have allowed him to complete it was pulled. How different things could have been if this had happened, said one friend.

O’Regan’s death wasn’t caused by his financial trouble but it certainly took a toll. The pressure exerted by his banks following the collapse of his businesses in 2009 was intense. In a court case involving Anglo Irish Bank two years ago he spoke of wanting to be “treated with some level of dignity” and how he felt he was trying to fight “against a big corporation that has just swallowed me up and spit me out”.

His story is an example of why the Government must move fast not just to introduce the personal insolvency legislation but to push cases through and press the banks not to veto out-of-court settlement proposals. This will give people hope that there is a way out of their financial trouble, that there can be a second chance.

The continuing exodus of heavily indebted individuals, from the once wealthy business owners to building-site workers, to the UK where bankruptcy is more lenient shows there is no more time to waste in making the vital changes that will reboot a crashed system. It also shows that the legislation doesn’t go far enough.

There is a saying in business that you must endure two fires and a liquidation before you know you’ve made it. Here, the fires and liquidation are so severe that it is hard for people to see how they can go again. It shouldn’t have to be this way.