I think “Cash4Gold” got there before ya Alan.

It’s difficult for me to fathom how ‘a car or van worth up to €1,200′ can even be counted as an asset. Well on the way to becoming a liability and will cost more than it’s worth to run. And I speak as someone who drives such a vehicle.

Something a bit vindictive about this. I’d feel very sorry for someone who had to sell their engagement rings. I’m sure marriages where the couple are in debt are experiences enough pressure.

Also if you have a ring that cost €1000 to buy an insurance company will value it at €2000 but if you try to sell it you’d be lucky to get about €300. A lot of wealthy jewelers will make a fortune out of this. Seems whatever way we turn in this recession the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. You can always make good reasons to do the wrong thing. I just feel very sad for people who will be faced with this.

When i read the headline, i was ready to attack Shatter…

But to be fair, if you read his quote ..
“I am mindful of the sentimental, as much as actual, value of items such as engagement rings, etc. However, given the potential for misuse of such a possible exemption, I would need to hear very convincing arguments as to why a person applying for a full debt write-off of up to €20,000 [...] should be allowed to retain expensive items of jewellery which might be sold to repay some of the debt.”

And then consider the likes of Fingers Fingleton, the Dunnes, the Quinnn family etc, who are all trying to stash money everywhere, and ask the Irish tax payer to pick up their tabs, while declaring themselves Bankrupt, then Shatter is right…

But he is wrong, if he is aiming the legislation at some Young couple, who took out a monster mortgage at thge height of the boom, and through no fault of their own, lost their incomes and need to declare themselves bankrupt etc…. These people should not have to sell engagement rings etc…

On balance, people who owe billiions, generally have jewellery worth a lot more than the average Joe Bloggs. I am quite sure that is what Shatter intended.

Dear minister, tell your party leader and minister for finance to stop using our money to pay other peoples debts, then you may be able to speak with some authority about how we should clear our own.

..I guess from now on the saying will be: “What a load of Shat”

I don’t have a car, I can’t afford one. But I got a bike under the bike-to-work scheme that cost over €400 (not sure what it’s worth). Would he take that off me?
(I never liked Shatter, he’s an arrogant git at the best of times)

Diamonds have no resale value, unlike gold which can be traded. In fact they have no intrinsic value and so nobody will be selling their engagement rings. Very interesting book here on how DeBeers managed to create a demand for a product of no value:

http://edwardjayepstein.com/diamond/prologue.htm

This seems a little bit over the top to me.

With respect to cars, anyone who owes money on a car worth anything got it on finance, so it’s probably been handed back under the half-rule, or taken back already. If someone still has an active hire-purchase scheme, it seems fair that they give it up, as they don’t own the car. That said, someone might still have a car worth 10K and owe 10K in personal debt. Seems like this could be open to abuse.

With respect to jewellery, this has sentimental value and is a funny one. However, again, this could be open to abuse. If someone has 15k of credit card debt and they bought a 5k engagement ring on a credit card, is it fair for them to keep it? It’s hardly fair, to take it from their fiancee. So where’s the balance.

Lots of people have savings as well as significant personal debt. Someone cynical could spend their savings on a car or jewellery, and then hit the insolvency button. This is moral hazard.

We need something to protect this system from abuse. The better off in society will immediately jump at the chance to bury any cash they have in assets for the wife, as they have always done. We will need a rule about asset purchases made in the last 12 months, so that this cannot be abused.

We also need figure for car values. Not, “take any car worth over 1200 euro”. People need a car. Anyone I know driving a 1000 euro car would rather not have the expense of running a car, they have it out of necessity. They would struggle to raise cash for a car in insolvency. A better rule would be something like “If you have a car worth over 5K, you need to downsize it to 5K”. This stops people from keeping nearly new cars they own outright, but doesn’t begrudge someone a car that’s of a reasonable age, in reasonable working order.
- This will stop the insolvent barrister from keeping his 5 series while dumping his personal debts on the taxpayer

I think you could do something similar for jewellery. Jewellery up to, say, 5K is protected and anything inherited from your grandmother or whatever is beyond the bailiff and not counted. Anything over that and they won’t take your engagement ring, but you cannot be discharged from a portion of the debt to compensate your creditors. So say, at the end of the insolvency, you might owe another few K to your creditors. Not necessarily the full amount of your jewellery’s inflated insurance value, but just something towards protecting from abuse
- This means the insolvent barrister who bought a 50K engagement ring for his fiancee out of an equity release doesn’t walk away laughing. He keeps some portion of the debt after insolvency in the interests of fairness.

Be very, very careful with this kite flying people. The pop-up pro-bono debt management agencies, are flying kites with examples of hard pressed ordinary people. If there’s a back lash saying:
- OF COURSE you should be able to keep your cars! People need their cars!
- OF COURSE you should be able to keep your jewellery! Jesus, the humanity!
- Keep people in their family homes!
then you’ll have given them exactly what they want.

Yes, you’ll have kept your car and jewellery, but the protected upper middle class will get away with dumping the gambling debts they built up in their leveraged personal retirement accounts, while staying in their trophy homes and driving their luxury cars. And they’ll stuff their cash assets into jewellery for the wife.

Any inch you give ordinary joe soap here, will amount to a mile for the better off, who will have their solicitors, financial/tax advisers, accountants etc. In fact, there will be a new breed of experienced insolvency advisers for the wealthy soon – watch the left hand of the pop-up debt management groups who are ostensibly working for free to protect ordinary Joe. The cynic in me says they are laying the groundwork to create precedent for protecting the professional classes and getting the old-boys club out of the mire.

We need limits. Hard and fast limits on what can be protected. Avoid an emotional response here, and watch what the left hand is doing. Put a limit on car values, and a limit on personal jewellery

The fact is that if jewellery were exempt then you would find the likes of Sean Quinn into mr gear and weirs, buying up sovereign rings and diamond necklaces ago-go. Then we’d be back on here lambasting our admittedly, mainly incompetent, gov for letting it happen. There should be, and maybe I missed it, a threshold for engagement rings, 10,000 would be more than fair would it not?

arrogant inconsiderate man.

With him as minister for justice most people with any jewellery will have had it stolen soon enough as he lets all the criminals out of prison to make room for non payers of the household charge

Ghastly little front man for robber barons strikes again

What planet does this man and his cronies live on .

He will be asking us to sell our children next Has he or his government any concept of what people are doing to relieve their debt. Am I the only household in this country without even the luxury of a TV after working and paying tax doe over 30 years.? I am an Irish Citizen ….. maybe I am just a wrong nationality……………..

Mr Quinn and his likes are not dealing with debt of under 20k.they know they are dealing with people with very little money here. But it’s a good example of how evil they are.this is rotten to the core .

“I am mindfully” is the phraseology of someone that cares, it is not the right of this so called government to imply that it cares. There jackboot policies are all that they understand, blue shirts striping away last bit of dignity left to real Irish people, We are watching. We are recording. Irish people educated now, beware

Anymore insidious comments like that and I’m sure Shatter alone would stir up a Greek up rising. It’s the same mindless, out of touch drivel that started the french revolution – we have no bread lads, so we’d best stick with the cake then!!! A car worth 1,200 is a liability but it gets someone to work Mr Shatter, if they have a f****in job at all, and as for keeping the only bits of memories you have left up to 400e then think again Mr Shatter, it wasn’t us that crucified our ability keep our head above water. But of course you can, your one of the most expensive Ministers in the Eurozone! – This reply is emailed directly to your office Mr Shatter!

Is this a joke just to rev.people up.is this what we need to get us to rebel. What kind of an idiot is this guy.if anyone has a valuable ring they are not going to b letting him see it oh maybe he ll send his hench men around to houses to search for them like the regular thugs .

So FG want to take everything,including the shirts from our backs, except engagement rings worth less than e400. Obviously Shatter has never thought about buying an engagement ring( I wonder how much he pays for his shirts). Scrap value for such an item would be around e150. As for vehicles worth less than e1200, firstly I doubt it would pass the NCT and secondly its scrap value would be negated by the scrappage fee of e600. Neither of these items value would have any impact on resolving a personal bankruptcy (being declared personally bankrupt over the sum of e1600 is obscene)

Apologies for the F-Bombs above, I’m extremely angry.

You have to agree with the minister’s line of thinking. If you own something that is not absolutely essential, you should be forced to sell it to clear your debts. Now perhaps he should legalise the black market in human organs as another source of cash for the strapped debtors. You only need one kidney, so why not sell the other one to clear your debts? Your liver can regenerate itself, so cut out half of it and sell it and clear your debts. Aren’t they doing hand and arm transplants now do? Do you really need that second hand? Now that there’s no engagement ring on it, why not just sell that too?

People with no money have little left but maybe some things that mean the world to them, such as an engagement ring. These are little things people attach themselves to and symbolise an emotional attachment to another person. You force someone to give up their keepsakes and now they’ve nothing at all. And who’s to say they won’t feel they’ve absolutely nothing worth living for any more and call it a day ? I see the logic behind this condition in the legislation but Shatter – let me ask you how you think you’d feel if you became aware that someone committed suicide because you took all they had left of value to them in this world ? People forced into unbearable situations are pushed further towards taking unbearable actions sometimes. You need to avoid simplistic rules like this one and draft your legislation to protect the vulnerable, not go for the easy option of aiming it at someone who has loads of jewellery worth thousands and also painting the genuine Jane Doe and her only piece of jewellery which is precious to her with it. You’re wrong on this one Alan because you don’t want what you see as unnecessary complexity. But I tell you now – if you want to do this right you will have to live with the complexity and make sure the legislation protects those who need protection, not potentially force them into an emotional black hole.

How heartless to force someone who has finically collapsed and will have to sell everything to pay for the mismanagement of this country to have their engagement ring taken and sold for the price of scrape gold. A house, a car etc I can understand but a token of love once felt? These are the plans and ideas of justice from people who take home over €2000 and feel no shame in betraying the people who voted for them to make things right and have barefacedly backtracked and lied. More gold for the wages of the greedy, one of whom declared “Not a penny more!” Perhaps next time people will demand to know “not a penny more for whom?”

Mark u can read it as often as u like. It still says the same thing people owing less than 20 k and have to go bankrupt because of it could b stashing away their valuables .what utter lack of understanding of where people are at after over 4years .what s valuable is gone , savings are gone,income robbed, or non existent.how could shatter or any of his cronies get that when they still have their jobs and perks and are totally stupid as well.none of em can come up with even a basic plan other than “give us what u have”

Why not do it properlynSell the kids to work down pit also nOr maybe into the sex trade it’s very lucrative also creating taxable incomenThis from a man who gets expenses and a car that would keep several big families on the dolenWhat planet do these people live onnIt’s certainly not EARTH !!!!n

The cheek of the b——but of course he is not the first minister to ask people for their rings as payment . Nobody would b lookin for debt forgiveness if we weren’t screwed up by having to pay bond holders

We need more ironic ministers.
A wealthy, debt free man dictates on how people should manage their debt, next up – an obese man tells us to watch what we eat.

Shatter isn’t just scraping the end of the barrel, he has started gnawing at it like a trapped disease ridden rat! Getting people to sell engagement rings…. Jesus! Shatter, you’re not just out of touch you are on another planet! While the rich declare bankruptcy and still take two /three holidays a year and other luxuries, Shatter is looking for coins down the back of sofas belonging to the poor. Despicable man!

Well said Brid – Bad laws make the mainstream law abiding folk into criminals. Yet there’s no justice in this country for the mainstream law abiding folk.

So in this situation, in your opinion, someone who couldn’t afford to pay their debts but happily splashed out on a €425 pair of specs deserves to walk away from the debts and keep the specs?

Whats next maybe they could give a kidney or half a liver or a couple of points of blood , those people did not cause the problem the people that caused the problem are on hoidays or playing golf or retired on the big pensions laughting at the rest of us while the government of the day are only interested in robbing the people to pay other peoples debts.

Queue the flood of change of ownership forms to dept of transport in Shannon. People will be putting cars in wife’s name or brothers or sisters etc. jewellery will be hidden etc etc. hey if Seany Quinn can do it and get away with it why can’t the ordinary man?

This just beggars belief? And should the people who find themselves in this situation have any gold fillings removed, after all gold seems to be what’s desired here. Then what? Perhaps those who find themselves in this situation should be held in detention centres to ensure they can’t hide any money or items of value, a concentration camp if you will. Ok this is a bit in cheek but you get the point.
This is insulting in the extreme from a government supposed to be protecting its citizens in financial difficulty, the same government propose to do absolute nothing to the banks we, the citizens of the country now own, who refuse to pass on interest rate cuts. These cuts would have a significant affect in helping those in financial difficulty, if a bank we own refuses to pass it on the Taoiseach should be calling someone in and giving him a few hours to do so or asking for his resignation but instead noting changes. The banks dictate to government and the people pay the ultimate price. Disgusting.

Ronan well make it so that rules don’t get scaled up.insolvency below 20 k one set of rules that would b suiting the majority.cant make the majority suffer for the minority who are wealthy AGAIN

To be honest, i have a few cheap gold rings here (cost maybe 40 euro a few years back) i think i would make out that this would be my engagement ring etc….i would never give up any inherited jewellery or any with sentimenal vale…i just would tell them i had it :0)

The thing that strikes me about this is by not allowing some exemptions for sentimental items, you off the bat encourage people to hide assets and commit fraud, further eroding the standing of the rule of law in this society.

Does the MINISTER ( on his nice salary) want me to stop buying shoes for my kids also, or maybe i could put them in a workhouse for a few years. Seriously MINISTER i think your speach writer should have done a better job if your comments were not aimed at the ordinary folk in this country who are still doing their best to get up in the morning,go to work,pay their taxes and contribute to this messed up economy. Now you want us to do it without our most treasured possessions . you are indeed out of touch with what we have to contend with every day.

Write down of 20 grand and sell engagement ring? Or hold onto the ring and try pay back the money? Some comments here are ridiculous I know if that’s what was on offer to me I’d take hand and all, sentiment will not pay any bills.

Alan Shatter is a total Disgrace and what he is doing is wrong, what do you expect from a heartless, gutless man like him, he wants to gag the garda as well, and wants to close more Garda station, take peoples jewlellery, if the people dont give up their Memories of their pocessions they are threathed forcefully , or go to Jail. Wrong, totally wrong, What if it was him and his wife in trouble, and his wife had to give up all her pocessions and her Rings of Pocession to Hand over all to pay out their debts, i dont think he would like that done on him, uncostitutional this is! wrong and Illegal By Irish Law,

Ronan all very nice self controlled and non emotive.but they are not makin a ruleing for the rich here ,we are talkin of people having to become insolvent fir20k or less thro.no fault of their own”this is not ur fault” .if they want to catch the rich they are in a different field. Go get em.

Dear Journal the Headline you used on this story at a time of massive personal financial distress is inaccurate and potentially inflammatory as the Minister made no such statement in the manner that you use as an implied or direct quote.

I believe comments like this are to keep the riff Taff away from the process.

You know the riff raff, the ones who actually new this bill.

The Government have betrayed their people. This is a step too far.