Debt legislation - Imprisoning debtors helps no one

THE Seanad will begin debating emergency legislation in relation to imprisoning people for debt tomorrow.

There was an old adage that if you owed the banks a few hundred, you were worried, but it you owed them millions, then they were worried. Now we have people owing the banks tens, even hundreds of millions, while the banks owe billions.

The whole country should be worried, but it seems that only comparatively small debtors are going to jail. Under legislation dating from 1926 and 1940, some 276 people were put in prison for non-payment of debts during 2008.