Proposals to make people sell off personal items of jewellery before applying for personal insolvency are unfair, the director of the Free Legal Advice Centres (Flac) Noeline Blackwell said yesterday.
The dignity of struggling debtors has to be safeguarded even as they are going through insolvency, and stripping them of items such as engagement rings could cause “enormous upset”.
Speaking in the Dáil on Thursday, Minister for Justice Alan Shatter rejected suggestions that items such as engagement rings should be exempt from the means-testing process for struggling borrowers.
“I am mindful of the sentimental, as much as actual, value of items such as engagement rings, etc,” Mr Shatter said.
“I would need to hear very convincing arguments as to why a person applying for a full debt write-off of up to €20,000 from his or her creditors should be allowed to retain expensive items of jewellery which might be sold to repay some of the debt incurred,” the Minister said.
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