Mr Morris has raised the issue in light of the huge increase in the number of suicides in South Tipperary and nationally in the past four years and the fact that some of these suicides were committed by individuals under financial pressure due to the impact of the recession.
There were 18 deaths by suicide in South Tipperary last year, which was double the number of such deaths in the South Riding in 2009.
Mr Morris, who was one of the speakers at a high profile Suicide Awareness meeting in Clonmel last month, said he hadn’t analysed the suicide cases that have come before South Tipperary Coroners’ court in recent years but acknowledged the recession has been a factor in some specific cases.
He believes there is a need to “chip away at the awful ruthless culture” where a “kind of merciless Darwinian approach” is taken to people in financial trouble.
He said he suspects the policies of some financial institutions and debt collection agencies in relation to collecting money owed to them don’t comply with the provisions of the 1997 Non-Fatal Offences Against the Person Act.
He said the manner in which financial institutions communicated with a debtor could be the last straw for a person under severe financial pressure and lead them to entertain suicidal thoughts.
Under Section 10 of the Act, it is an offence to harass a person by persistently communicating with them by any means including by telephone in such a way that it intentionally or recklessly seriously interferes with their peace and privacy or causes alarm, distress or harm.
And Under Section 11 of the Act, a person who makes a demand for payment of a debt is guilty of an offence if the frequency of their demands is calculated to subject the debtor or a member of their family to alarm, distress or humiliation. They are also committing an offence if they falsely represent that failure to pay the debt will result in criminal proceedings or that they are authorised in some official capacity to enforce payment or utter a document falsely representing to be official.
Mr Morris urged financial institutions and debt collectors to have policies in place to ensure their staff don’t harass debtors and breach the law.
He advised people in financial difficulties to invoke the Act if they feel they are being harassed.
“If a person is being harassed by a financial institution or debt collector they can point out to whoever is directly contacting them that he or she is the offender and they are free to make a complaint to the Gardai,” he explained.
Interestingly, Mr Morris recommended to people in financial difficulties to hire an independent mediator with the necessary skills to negotiate with the banks and other creditors on their behalf, and he urged financial institutions, companies and other agencies collecting debts to deal with these third parties in cases where they are engaged rather than dealing with the individual debtor.
I couldn't agree more with Mr Norris as over the past three years our team at GDP Partnership have encountered endless cases whereby the debtors are at a complete loss and really struggling under the duress being applied by institutions in terms of debt recovery, An observation would be that the solicitor or accountant in many cases who is introduced to assist the case, actually fails to understand the process and policy of the bank therefor is not in a position to bring forward proposals in line with banking policy, resulting in an impasse.
Thankfully, through our team at GDP partnership based in Belfast and Dublin, where we have invested in a group of highly skilled multi disciplined people who are sympathetic to the borrowers position, have been able to mitigate this problem in some way, however there is so much more work to be done. Indeed there have been a number of cases in the past twenty four months whereby we would have encountered very distressed borrowers who are in a seriously fragile mental state and have lost all hope in the process and challenges they face. So I think Mr Norris timely airing of the connection with suicide cases and the debt burden in the country can only be a positive development.
There is a saying that in every bad situation there is good come out of it. Lets hope that some of the mistakes of the past in this financial arena are acknowledged and rectified in the future so we are not talking about the disastrous subject matter of suicide in the same sentence as the debt burden facing Irish society.
Author: Conor Devine MRICS
Partner
There were 18 deaths by suicide in South Tipperary last year, which was double the number of such deaths in the South Riding in 2009.
Mr Morris, who was one of the speakers at a high profile Suicide Awareness meeting in Clonmel last month, said he hadn’t analysed the suicide cases that have come before South Tipperary Coroners’ court in recent years but acknowledged the recession has been a factor in some specific cases.
He believes there is a need to “chip away at the awful ruthless culture” where a “kind of merciless Darwinian approach” is taken to people in financial trouble.
He said he suspects the policies of some financial institutions and debt collection agencies in relation to collecting money owed to them don’t comply with the provisions of the 1997 Non-Fatal Offences Against the Person Act.
He said the manner in which financial institutions communicated with a debtor could be the last straw for a person under severe financial pressure and lead them to entertain suicidal thoughts.
Under Section 10 of the Act, it is an offence to harass a person by persistently communicating with them by any means including by telephone in such a way that it intentionally or recklessly seriously interferes with their peace and privacy or causes alarm, distress or harm.
And Under Section 11 of the Act, a person who makes a demand for payment of a debt is guilty of an offence if the frequency of their demands is calculated to subject the debtor or a member of their family to alarm, distress or humiliation. They are also committing an offence if they falsely represent that failure to pay the debt will result in criminal proceedings or that they are authorised in some official capacity to enforce payment or utter a document falsely representing to be official.
Mr Morris urged financial institutions and debt collectors to have policies in place to ensure their staff don’t harass debtors and breach the law.
He advised people in financial difficulties to invoke the Act if they feel they are being harassed.
“If a person is being harassed by a financial institution or debt collector they can point out to whoever is directly contacting them that he or she is the offender and they are free to make a complaint to the Gardai,” he explained.
Interestingly, Mr Morris recommended to people in financial difficulties to hire an independent mediator with the necessary skills to negotiate with the banks and other creditors on their behalf, and he urged financial institutions, companies and other agencies collecting debts to deal with these third parties in cases where they are engaged rather than dealing with the individual debtor.
I couldn't agree more with Mr Norris as over the past three years our team at GDP Partnership have encountered endless cases whereby the debtors are at a complete loss and really struggling under the duress being applied by institutions in terms of debt recovery, An observation would be that the solicitor or accountant in many cases who is introduced to assist the case, actually fails to understand the process and policy of the bank therefor is not in a position to bring forward proposals in line with banking policy, resulting in an impasse.
Thankfully, through our team at GDP partnership based in Belfast and Dublin, where we have invested in a group of highly skilled multi disciplined people who are sympathetic to the borrowers position, have been able to mitigate this problem in some way, however there is so much more work to be done. Indeed there have been a number of cases in the past twenty four months whereby we would have encountered very distressed borrowers who are in a seriously fragile mental state and have lost all hope in the process and challenges they face. So I think Mr Norris timely airing of the connection with suicide cases and the debt burden in the country can only be a positive development.
There is a saying that in every bad situation there is good come out of it. Lets hope that some of the mistakes of the past in this financial arena are acknowledged and rectified in the future so we are not talking about the disastrous subject matter of suicide in the same sentence as the debt burden facing Irish society.
Author: Conor Devine MRICS
Partner
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