MABS sees increase in Mayo people accessing service: Barrett
The Money Advice and Budgeting Service, (MABS) has seen an increase of between 5 and 10% in the level of middle income earners accessing the service in Mayo. Labour candidate, Harry Barrett, has attributed the increase to higher mortgage increases as a result of rampant house inflation and reckless credit card and personal loan lending by banking institutions.
Barrett explains, “ This is a valuable service that helps people manage debt and a spokesperson has confirmed to me that they are seeing an increase in families in the middle income bracket in Mayo, using the service mainly due to credit card problems.
This issue is backed up by young parents who tell me that higher mortgage costs and rising childcare bills are forcing them into credit card debt to make up the shortfall. House prices have continued to rocket in this county, pushing many people into huge mortgages. Little has been done to make house buying more affordable. Put the added cost of having children into the equation and you have thousands of hard working families in Mayo struggling to make ends meet.
“Enter your friendly banking institution, that is willing to allow you to spend thousands on your credit card for making up the shortfall, and you now have a recipe for disaster. Banks are recklessly lending to both young and old in this county. Only a number of years ago, you had to have serious proof on hand to show that a loan could be repaid. Now, banks are increasing credit limits without permission and are pushing loan money at people with the aid of clever advertising and marketing. There is also no doulbe checking to see if clients have taken out multiple loans.
“This government has failed to act on housing, on childcare, on stealth taxes. It has also to deal with an unregulated banking sector that locks thousands of people up in a prison of debt for years.
“New Government action will be needed after this election to deal with the issue of uncontrolled debt. Legislation must be enacted to force the Financial Regulator to tighten up on the criteria used to decide loan applications and the network of Credit Unions must be advertised and utilised to full effect. People need to see other ways of making up the shortfall in the high cost economy we have inherited from the government,” concluded Barrett .
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