Huge rise in numbers seeking help with financial difficulties
More than 14,000 new clients have contacted the Money Advice and Budgeting Service (MABS) this year, while St Vincent de Paul said calls from people seeking help at its Dublin office have increased by almost 40% from last year.
A spokesman for the Dublin branch, which is holding a special meeting on Saturday to highlight the issue, said it was a “serious situation”.
“Calls in general are up significantly around the country — in Dublin they are up 40% on last year and I am hearing reports that it is the same in Cork and Galway,” he said. “More than 20% of people who are calling are first-time callers, and this is very worrying.”
Among other things, people are mainly concerned about energy costs, food and education costs, he said.
Meanwhile MABS, which has been allocated €18 million this year to deal with its workload, reported that the average debt of its clients increased by 50% in the first eight months of 2008, and up to 10,000 people have called its new helpline since it was set up last September.
Fine Gael spokesman on enterprise, labour affairs and small business, Damien English, said the Government was in denial about private debt.
Mr English said that while he accepted the Government is not responsible for personal debt, it needed to address the issue as ordinary people who had been encouraged to spend when things were good were now paying the price. “There is immense pressure on people because of the serious lack of cash available,” he said.
“The banks were given breathing space by the Government, and ordinary people need to be too,” he said.
“People’s debts are only going to increase unless this problem is tackled.”
MABS’ statistics for 2008 indicate that the average debt owed by new clients when they first approached was €11,600, compared with €7,600 in 2007 — 63% of money owed was to banks and financial institutions, 17% to Credit Unions, 3% to utilities, and 2% to moneylenders.
Almost 8,000 of its clients are in receipt of social welfare or health board benefits as their primary income.
According to the Combat Poverty Agency, which recently published a policy statement on tackling financial exclusion, Ireland has the fourth highest level among the EU-15.
Its report concluded that financial exclusion is an emerging issue in Ireland, with 340,000 adults having no bank account and urged that accounts be introduced with no transaction fees, overdraft facility or cheque book, and an ATM card with no stamp duty.
According to the group, about 300,000 Irish people are using authorised money lenders.
