I find it almost impossible to deal effectively with a Bill of this nature, which is very complex and detailed and which to a large extent has been dramatically changed since its introduction. As with another recent piece of legislation, the Government is proposing a huge number of amendments to the Bill on Committee Stage. In view of this the proposed legislation should be withdrawn and reconsidered to see if more comprehensive legislation can be presented for discussion in a more sensible and reasonable way.
The Bill attempts to modernise consumer affairs, including consumer information, with regard to those dealing with financial institutions, money lenders or whatever. There is a grave necessity to do this. We are all aware of the amount of damage done, especially by money lenders, in the small towns and cities where people have been ripped off for years by those who have been treating their customers in a shoddy and unfair manner.
There has been much debate and discussion in the House on money lending and how it is possible to deal with rogue money lenders who have been ripping off people. Nobody is more aware of this than the Minister himself. When I was the Minister for Social Welfare he was in communication with me on a regular basis because of the activities of these pirates who were putting enormous pressure on people, especially on families on occasions of first communions, confirmations or whatever.
Were it not for the support given by the Minister for Social Welfare to the Society of St. Vincent de Paul to enable these rogue villains to be dealt with they would continue to run riot in urban areas, to exert enormous pressure on people and to send them huge bills. The interest rates they charge are incalculable. For example, they run one loan into another, make all kinds of offers and engage in all kinds of wheeling and dealing. They still appear to get away with it.
If the Government is serious about this issue it is essential that it establish a subcommittee to deal with it as it is one which involves the Minister for Social Welfare and the Minister with responsibility for this area of legislation. In many cases it requires a more positive and involved attitude from the Department of Justice. Some of the people responsible for moneylending operations are criminals who are walking the streets. They fall into the same category as the drug pushers and hooligans who seem to be running our towns and cities at present.
I do not wish to pursue this any further. I appeal to the Minister to spell out how he proposes to protect people from the rogue and disgraceful tactics of moneylenders. At present it is not being dealt with effectively despite the best interests and intentions of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul and other organisations who are involved with this problem on a daily basis.
I want to ask the Minister whether or not it will be possible to have more detailed information available for people who are in the process of negotiating loans, particularly hire purchase and leasing agreements, with some of the financial institutions? Without trying to identify particular cases, I want to inform the House of a recent situation where an individual borrowed in the region of £8,000 last February to buy a Land Rover. That person paid £700 during the first number of months and then his payments went into decline. He had made no further payments, up to last week, on the £8,400 he originally borrowed. The hire purchase company seized the property some weeks ago and sent him a demand for something in the region of £13,000 which they claimed had accumulated in that space of time. I have not gone into the details of calculating interest in this kind of situation. It would be unfair to put the name of such a well known and well established company on record without knowing the full details of the case. However, the fact of the matter is that this individual, who borrowed £8,500 and paid £700 between February and June, is faced with a bill of £13,000 to redeem his property under the leasing agreement he entered with a well known financial institution.
The individual involved in that particular incident contacted me to speak to the company on his behalf. What bothered me most about it was that not alone were they not prepared to negotiate an arrangement with him to finalise the matter, but they actually felt it was their business to decide whether or not his property should be returned to him, despite the fact that he was prepared to pay the full amount due to them. I find it extraordinary that a financial institution, which deals with people on an individual basis and negotiates payments over long periods, should decide, when repayments are not made, that the person involved should pay the full amount due and that the property should not be returned even if the full amount due is paid. Unless this legislation can deal with the interest levels involved in such a situation, we might as well go home and not waste the Minister's time.
I would like to know if the legislation can deal with that kind of situation and if the Director of Consumer Affairs can give some satisfaction to clients or customers who are deeply aggrieved by the behaviour of such institutions. It seems that the company in this particular case were unwilling to make arrangements with the individual involved — despite the fact that he was prepared to pay the full amount due — because he had not dealt with them fully during the loan period and had not returned their telephone calls. Not only did the company believe they had a right to make decisions about the money owed but they believed they had other rights also. For instance, they felt they could decide, even though he was willing to pay the full outstanding amount through other arrangements, they were not even willing to give him back what he felt was his property. All such agreements which are couched in all kinds of small print need to be put in large print.
We find this even in international airports. I was deceived in Heathrow not so long ago and had to take it up with the authorities there. Special offers are on display but are dependent on the purchaser meeting some conditions that are totally beyond anybody's reach. Is such misleading advertising covered by this legislation?
I also want to deal with the question of door to door salespeople. Does the Bill cover this situation? The Minister will be aware that quite an amount of business is done by people who travel from door to door. They sell books, magazines and so on. From my reading of the Bill, it is not clear whether this is covered by it.
I support what the Minister is endeavouring to achieve. There is a grave necessity to conduct a comprehensive overhaul of the legislation in this area. I admit it is complicated as it involves a number of Departments and Government agencies but these matters must be dealt with thoroughly now. Can the Minister indicate whether it would be possible to have a booklet published setting out the precise details of the legislation? I doubt if many people, either in these Houses or outside of them, who could go through this detailed technical legislation and be able to put it into ordinary——