Róisín Shortall (Dublin North West, Labour)
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Question 226: To ask the Minister for Social and Family Affairs if she will provide the data from the MABSIS system for the first nine months of 2008 on the number of new clients; the number and percentage of new clients on social welfare and by type of payment; the number and percentage of new clients earning a wage; the client profile by tenure type; the debt owed by new clients when they first presented to the Money Advice and Budgeting Service with a breakdown by creditor type; and the average debt owed by new clients when they first presented to MABS. [33146/08]

Mary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)
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The Money Advice and Budgeting Service (MABS) provided services to 10,838 new clients in the period to end August 2008. In addition, 1,641 people sought information about budgeting and money management. The MABS National Helpline received 6,457 calls to date in 2008.

The majority of clients were on social welfare payments (59%), the highest numbers being 1,917 (18%) who were in receipt of the one parent family payment, 1,837 (17%) who were in receipt of jobseekers payments and 1,527 (14%) in receipt of illness/disability payments. Some 28% of clients were in receipt of wages and just under 3% were self-employed. Clients mostly lived in rented accommodation, with 27% living in private rented accommodation and 25% in rented local authority accommodation. People with mortgages made up 26% of new clients and 8% lived with parents.

The total owed by new clients in 2008 to creditors, based on the debt they had when they first came to the MABS, amounted to €123 million, which works out at an average amount of €11,400 debt per client. Of the total amount of debt 62% was owed to banks/financial institutions, 17% was owed to credit unions, 3% was owed in respect of utilities bills and 2% was owed to moneylenders.^^