Ms Josephine Feehily:

If only I knew the answer to that. First of all, nothing goes to the sheriff without being positively decided on by a senior officer. Nothing goes to the sheriff just by a button in the computer - there is no automatic referral. It is regarded as a serious enforcement tool and we do not allow it just to happen. The case is assessed. There will be a debt. There will be a debt that has gone on for a while. There will have been either minimal or no engagement. There will have been reminders and then the case is assessed for the most appropriate enforcement tool, which can range from referral to our external solicitors to the sheriff or the use of attachment order that I discussed earlier.

We do find that the referral to the sheriff causes a reaction that we seem to be unable to cause in some cases. They settle with the sheriff having just refused or failed to engage with us in some cases. My colleague, Mr. Gerry Harrahil, is just reminding me that at the point where we are issuing the reminders and the demands after the case decision has been made, we point out the cost consequences of not engaging. So, in other words, we point out that "If this goes to the sheriff, you'll have to pay the sheriff fees". I have experience of this myself where somebody has actually sent a payment into my own office the day after they got sheriff notice. Then we have this big mess about who pays the sheriff and if they cross in the post, we will pay the sheriff.

The answer is that I do not know, but if there are specific cases I would be happy to hear about what we might have done to get them to engage with us because we will have offered them instalment arrangements. Inevitably in the kind of case the Chairman is describing, they enter into an instalment arrangement with post-dated cheques with the sheriff and then they have to pay his costs. We would have given them the same deal without the costs.