Sir, – So now the personal insolvency practioner who was lambasted for saying he would have to take into account the status of professionals has been proved partially right.
If anything, he understated the position by limiting it to the liberal professions. The High Court has confirmed that if you run into serious financial trouble your family may still be able to access income in keeping with the “lifestyle to which you have become reasonably accustomed”. An allowance of €9,000 per month (including golf membership at about €2,000 per annum!) would far exceed even the lifestyle affordable by former Ministers’ handsome pensions.
No one wants to see any family destitute. But there have to be limits. Cases such as this are an affront to any sense of equity. They must be resented bitterly by those who are struggling to eke out a living, never mind a lifestyle.
The fact that it is legal because the allowance comes from frozen assets will be of no consolation to anyone. Laws and cases of this sort reinforce the view that in our society the wealthier classes remain protected.
It is always a little tasteless to express things in terms of status in society. During the boom we heard a lot about the prospects for upward mobility. That would imply that in purely relative terms there would be a corresponding degree of downward mobility. Our laws and practices tend to rule out the latter even in times of recession. – Yours, etc,
JOHN F JORDAN,
Flower Grove,
Killiney,
Co Dublin.