Inexorable rise in Judgment values, sees unpaid debts return to crisis levels

The inexorable rise in unpaid debts sees registered judgment values climbing back to peak crisis levels, with the total value of Q2 2013 judgments reaching an astonishing 161 million, up almost 61% on the corresponding period last year. This abrupt reversal of the downward trend can be substantially attributed to the Private Banking sector, where registered judgment values are up 94% to 60.7 million in Q2 2013, from 31.2 million in Q2 2012 and in the same comparative period, Other Creditors have increased the value of their registered judgments by 248% from 16.2 million to 61.5 million

The revenue commissioners have recorded their lowest Q2 total value for 4 years with registered judgment values down 39% to 20.6 million in Q2 2013 and though the State Owned Banking Sector are up 3.4% at 17.7 million, these Q2 2013 judgment values are no more than 25% of the crisis peak, experienced in 2010 and 2011.

Consumer judgments are the largest category by value and are up 41.7% to 119.5 million in Q2 2013 but the real growth area has been commercial judgments, up a gargantuan  392.6% to 42.2 million in Q2 2013.

James Treacy, Managing Director of Stubbsgazette commented “Irish insolvency figures may be showing signs of stabilisation after 5 consecutive years increase but corporate Ireland still has a colossal debt problem and improving insolvency rates don’t truly reflect the state of corporate indebtedness”.