Protection for debtors needed, says Flanagan

IRELAND’S LACK of a vetting system for debt collectors is playing straight into the hands of east European mafiosi and criminals like Martin “The Viper” Foley, Fine Gael justice spokesman Charlie Flanagan has claimed.

Introducing a private member’s Bill in the Dáil to regulate debt collection in Ireland, the Laois-Offaly TD said vulnerable debtors needed to be protected from ruthless and often violent collectors.

The legislation provides for the issuing of licences by the Financial Regulator to collectors, who would have to be vetted first by the Garda before they could operate.

He said it was utterly intolerable that people who owed money “are being subjected to the threat of violence from debt collectors who in many cases are convicted criminals, trading on their violent reputations”.

He said people came to him who were threatened by well-known criminals.

“Property has been vandalised and assaults have taken place. While threatening behaviour, vandalism and assault are against the law, many people are afraid to go the Garda because of the nature of the threats against them.”

But Minister of State for Children Barry Andrews rejected the 19-page Protection of Debtors Bill and said it would do little to actually address the issues.

He said adding debt collection to the regulator’s functions would dilute its core function, and the Bill would create a vast regulatory office.

Sinn Féin also rejected the legislation and the party’s finance spokesman Arthur Morgan said the Government and Opposition had played a “Jekyll and Hyde” approach to regulation over the years. He believed the core tenets of the Bill could be implemented by ministerial order.

They could be licensed by the Department of Finance, would have to be without a criminal record, have a tax clearance certificate and this could be done for instance by a practising solicitor, for example, as a “more suitable and efficient way”.

“Unscrupulous and illegal moneylending often involving the same people involved in unscrupulous and illegal debt collecting is just as big a problem”, he said.

Tom Sheahan (FG, Kerry South) highlighted a number of cases of people intimidated by debt collectors.

In one case a lone parent, owing money, had her front door kicked in and the next day, her windows were broken. He said that in another instance the wife of a businessman who was paying off moneylenders, was approached and her handbag taken and her purse emptied.

Mr Andrews said “any person who feels that they have been threatened or harassed by any person in the context of recovery of a debt allegedly owed by them, to contact the gardaí”.

But Labour justice spokesman Pat Rabbitte said that “to advise people in those circumstances to tell the gardaí, misunderstands the facts of life in large tracts of urban Ireland”.