Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Independent)
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The group of people I am most interested in ensuring protection for is the group Deputy Heather Humphreys talked about. If a person wishes to borrow €300 for three months and it costs €150, I would prefer it if he or she did not go with that, but it will probably not destroy him or her. The people Deputy Humphreys is talking about are being destroyed. We see from the data that the amounts add up to a great deal, it could be 85% of a loan over a year. This is potentially a major area.

I offer one thought that is halfway between where we are now and introducing a maximum cap on a given annual percentage rate of charge, APR. My suggestion is to introduce a cap on the total amount that can be paid back. Let us consider an example where a person borrows €500 and there is an APR of 100%. Perhaps that is fine or perhaps it is not. The people who get caught are the people who end up paying €500 every year and who never pay the capital down.

I call on the deputation to take away for consideration the idea of introducing a cap on that scenario to the effect that a moneylender may be able to charge 150% APR on a loan up to €400, whatever that is. Then, once the borrowers have paid back the moneylender 300%, regardless of whether the moneylender has got any of its capital back, that is it and the moneylender has got its sizeable return. If we could introduce such a cap, it would satisfy some of the people who would argue - I do not agree with them - around liberal markets, that people should be able to borrow money if they wish and for social inclusion and so on. It would end the problem Deputy Humphreys talked about because they would lose interest. If a person was in arrears and only paying half the interest, once a person has paid back 300% of the capital, for example, then the moneylender could be gone and would not get any more. By tomorrow morning that would stop people being trapped and clearly many people are trapped. I call on the deputation to take that away for consideration.