Action plan drawn up to help people heavily in debt

A 14-POINT action plan of initiatives to deal with problems caused by people suffering major personal debt is to be launched by the Law Reform Commission later today.

Among its main proposals, the LRC is recommending a protocol for all consumer debt cases which would make it mandatory for creditors to issue a warning letter before initiating court proceedings to recover their money.

In an interim report on personal debt management and debt enforcement to be published today, the LRC is also calling for the waiting period to be discharged from bankruptcy to be reduced from its current level of 12 years to six years or less.