The average debt of people attending the Money Advice and Budgeting Service (Mabs) has increased by 50 per cent in the first eight months of this year, Labour TD Roisin Shortall said today.
Ms Shortall, Labour spokeswoman on social and family affairs, was quoting from a response to a written parliamentary question put to the Minister for Social and Family Affairs.
She said the figures show that up to the end of August, the number of people seeking help from Mabs had risen to an average of 1,355 per month - a 33 per cent rise in eight months.
The total amount owed to creditors is now up to €123 million (a 30 per cent rise, with the average debt of Mabs clients now €11,400 (a 50 per cent rise), Ms Shortall added. One in four Mabs clients now have a mortgage - up from one in five in 2007.
Of the total amount of debt, 62 per cent was owed to banks/financial institutions, 17 per cent was owed to credit unions, 3 per cent was owed in respect of utilities bills and 2 per cent was owed to moneylenders.
"These figures confirm the mounting problem of debt among ordinary citizens. They are also likely to get much worse if the growing rate of unemployment is not addressed quickly," she said.
"It is time for the Government to recognise that the problems faced by today's unemployed are very different to those of the eighties and early nineties. Today's unemployed are leaving work with huge mortgages, large rent bills and mounting debt problems.
Ms Shortall added that Labour TDs had been contacted by homeowners who have been refused mortgage assistance by their community welfare officer because the officer "took the view that they should never have been given a mortgage in the first place".
"The contrasting treatment of these people and our financial institutions could not be more stark. It truly is a case of one rule for the rich and one for the poor."
Mabs is a free, confidential and independent service for people in debt or in danger of getting into debt.
