Large increase in consumers being pusued for bad debts in court

A credit risk analyst firm reports there has been a significant increase in the level of banks pursuing consumers for debt.

VisionNet.ie said financial institutions were awarded almost €53m in bad debt judgements in the first three months of 2015 - an increase of over 50% on the same period last year.

"There's a bit of a difference between the consumers and the commercial ones … in this particular study we did in the first three months," said Managing Director of VisionNet.ie, Christy Cullen.

"The total value of the judgements if €94m - so there's quite a significant amount of money out there. In total, there's 1,050 judgements going through the courts.

"About 77% of them are against consumers, while only 23% of them were made against the corporate entities."

She said the value of judgements had risen by €24.4m, and there was a large increase from banks, credit unions, and the Revenue in pursuing individuals through the courts.