Mr. Brendan Whelan:

We do not have any information at all on the impact on mental health arising from paying very high interest rates etc. so it would be very difficult to give an opinion on it. From much of the research we have done with borrowers who use moneylenders, it seems a dependency on the moneylender tends to develop, and this is used very well by moneylenders lining up the next loan and so forth. They tend to work in cycles. In the first half of the year it is probably about communion and summer holidays whereas in the latter part of the year it is more about Christmas.

Although we are loath to generalise, the research on borrowers also tends to indicate that many have a weekly focus on expenditure. When we say that during the course of a year they spend €300 on interest and this could have been reduced significantly if the loan was with the credit union, they do not tend to see it that way. They tend to see the expense as being €5 per week extra and they say that is nothing or they can live with it. If the requirement was for €500 and they ended up paying €300 in interest, it is clear that it is wrong that people are not fully aware that this could make a big difference to their borrowing requirements. Does that help to answer the question?