Minister for Social and Family Affairs Martin Cullen TD has launched a Money Advice and Budgeting Service (MABS) as part of an Irish League of Credit Union information awareness campaign aiming to assist people budgeting for Christmas.
The announcement follows a Combat Poverty funded paper entitled "Meeting the Needs of Low Income Groups" in which recommendations are made for credit unions to develop a marketing campaign targeting people with low incomes.
"The study shows that a significant number of people were borrowing from money lenders at high interest rates. This year alone 8329 new clients have been seen by MABS, the majority being lone parent families and the overall number of people who are being supported by MABS is 18,451," said the minister.
The TD added that he was very concerned about the problem of debt in low income families and that this is why MABS, with 53 offices nationwide, is there to provide advice to people who are indebted and in need of support and advice.
The programme will include a poster and media campaign to illustrate the benefits of using credit unions.
The government has allocated 17.7 million Euro to assist in the campaign.
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