This article is from page 20 of the 2013-04-02 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 20 JPG
THE pressure of household and personal debt is creating major mental health problems for people, a meeting in Ennis has heard.
Denis Corbett, co-ordinator of the Clare Money and Advice Budgeting Service (MABS), said the service is observing first hand the impact debt of having on families and individuals. He said, “I have seen the stresses and strains that indebtedness and the lack of money has on a person’s mental health. We are going to have to start putting resources into this. It is a problem.”
He was speaking last month at a seminar hosted by Citizen Information Centre and Alliance of Social Protection of Recipients.
The event at the Temple Gate hotel highlighted the impact debt is having on Clare households.
Mr Corbett also said that there has to be an emphasis in education on responsible budgeting
He explained, “In MABS we are talking about people drowning in a river of debt and we are there at the very end pulling people out. But somewhere upstream there’s been a hole in the ditch and people have been falling into it. What we need from an educational aspect is to block that hole in the ditch.”
Mr Corbett told the meeting that the profile of people seeking help from MABS has changed drastically over the past 10 years.
He said, “What we saw happening in the last number of years in this country was that it was indeed a financial tsunami that hit us. The thing about being hit with tsunami is that by the time it arrived at our doorstep and hit our homes, it started way back and way out at sea.”
He added, “At the start typically the profile of the person we would see coming into us would be someone with a difficulty with a loan, a credit card or a moneylender. That was the sort of profile of that we were dealing with. That all changed and the next thing we were dealing with people with mortgage problems.”
Mr Corbett said that while new personal insolvency legislation “isn’t ideal, it is a start”.
He added, “At least we have this now. We didn’t have anything like this in Ireland before. I’m hopeful that it will start to provide solutions and make things much clearer because what we need is stability.”
Liam O’Connell, a solicitor now working with MABS, said 10 years ago it was “virtually unheard” of that a person would have their home repossessed.
He added, “In 2007 there was only 50 houses in the entire country repossessed. That went up again in 2008. It went up to 96 properties from the mainstream lenders. Since then we know it’s gotten worse. It’s deteriorated. In the last quarter of 2012 there were 238 cases issued as regards repossessions. There were 178 cases concluded and 11 orders granted. That’s part of the mortgage crisis. It is a very, very significant problem.”