RTE news tonight. Jail threat for debt.

VOR
You are correct - credit unions make use of law agents far too quickly in the main because they have exceptionally poor competencies in collecting loan arrears. And keep in mind the stats you are seeing in the press relate to loans that went bad before the crash. Four years ago, during the boom, credit unions reported loan delinquency rates that were at the time shocking - seven out of ten were experiencing loan arrears in excess of the outer limits of prudent loan portfolio performance -this was at a time when one would have expected to see the opposite. The response was to take a tough line which meant outsourcing collection to law agents which in turn fed through into court activity and rising judgements etc.

It makes no sense in locking people for non payment of debt, it will be the tax payer that will have to keep them in prison.

As it is not a criminal offence for owing money the court should instead of locking people up instead the court should make people do community services as debt repayment to the community.

There are lots of community programmes that would benefit from this and also it would help people that had debt get back on tack again. Perhaps this would give them more experience of how others are being neglected by governments such as elderly people that are along and trying to get some help to get about and could well do with someone to do maintenances such as decorating and other heavy jobs around their home such as gardening etc. Also this would look well on their debtors CV's instead of having a break in their work record that would have to redress at any interview for new employment when the recession is over.

I have split off a particular question.


personal loan €15k, serious illness, bank threatening committal order

Please keep this thread for general discussion of "Jail threat for debt".

Thanks
aj

This kind of thing will drive people to all sorts of dangerous situations i.e. I would not be at all surprised if it caused quite a few suicides.

Also, I would suspect that anyone in this situation might consider fleeing the country and abandoning the debt.

I wonder would you have an entitlement to apply for asylum on the basis that if you returned to Ireland you would be jailed for something that is not even a legal offense, rather it's a debt management issue.

This country is a COMPLETE joke!

Bale out the bankers, and jail people who can't pay a few quid.

Not to mention the fact that this is costing the state hundreds of thousands, if not millions of Euro per year, to enforce what are civil contracts.

It's really not up to the state to collect debts through the use of the threat imprisonment !!!

No civil court should be jailing people, other than for serious contempt and that can normally be purged.

Also, given the risk analysis, or lack there of, done by creditors, it would seem to me that this stuff could be bordering on state-sponsored racketeering.

It seems that we are operating with almost completely unreformed Victorian British legislation in this area.

What I do not understand is why this judgement hasn't stopped this idiotic practice:

http://www.independent.ie/breaking-...n-debt-wins-high-court-challenge-1779217.html

Surely this has made such jailing illegal ?

I found more information here :

http://humanrightsinireland.wordpre...he-first-step-in-reshaping-our-prison-policy/

It seems that the Government rushed through emergency legislation after that case this year to ensure that people would continue to be jailed for non-payment of debts.

Fianna Fail are quite clearly very right wing!

Here's the disgraceful piece of draconian legislation : [broken link removed]

The difference is now that debtors are now entitled to free legal aid if faced with a committal. Also there are a raft of appeal measures available but sadly debtors don't know this.

The ENFORCEMENT OF COURT ORDERS (AMENDMENT) ACT 2009 could be just as easily challenged in the courts.

I just read VOR post with link to Irish Times Article and am now seriously worried - I have just decided due to reduced pay and now further reduced hours that I will have to approach my Credit Union to change the terms of my loan I will have to reduce repayments by about 150 per month, I have two years left on my loan and never had any problem the other three years - reading the Irish Times Article has made me wary - should I approach them, has anybody had experience of approaching their Credit Union to reduce payments - hopefully you are talking about non payment entirely.