SOME 134 PEOPLE who are either Irish citizens, residents or have an Irish address have filed for bankruptcy in England and Wales since the beginning of the financial crisis according to figures provided by Britain’s Insolvency Service.
The figures, given to Fianna Fáil TD Michael McGrath and seen by TheJournal.ie, indicate a rapid increase in the number of people with Irish addresses filing for bankruptcy in the UK over the last three years.
In 2007, just 11 people filed with Irish addresses and while this decreased to just 8 in the two subsequent years, it has shot up with 15 in 2010 and 28 in 2011.
Last year the figure rose again to 75 though the Insolvency Service said this data does not necessarily indicate the number of debtors who have relocated from Ireland to the UK specifically to obtain a bankruptcy order.
“Some of the addresses captured would be old addresses and so the debtor may have been a resident in the UK for some time, even years, prior to entering bankruptcy,” it said.
However data on is collected separately from Revenue Receivers on cases where there is evidence of a person moving to the UK solely for this purpose and the number of these debtors was up last year to 35 from just 13 in 2011.
Insolvency legislation in England and Wales means debtors face a standard bankruptcy term of just one year, compared to three years in Ireland. Before our own legislation was changed last year, bankruptcy in Ireland would last a total of 12 years.
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