The Money Advice and Budgeting Service (MABS) is the main Government funded service which provides assistance to people who are over-indebted and need help and advice in coping with debt problems. There are 53 independent companies with voluntary boards of management and over 240 money advice staff operating the local services throughout the country. Almost €18 million has been provided in 2008 to assist the MABS in dealing with its workload and a similar allocation will be provided for the service in 2009.
Last year, MABS provided services to over 12,400 new clients throughout the country. To date this year over 13,800 new clients have approached the service. The MABS National Telephone Helpline which was launched in October 2007 has dealt to date with approximately 10,000 calls.
The MABS provides a high quality personal service to the public and makes a difference to people's lives. However, it has been recognised for some time that the service needs a proper legislative basis and structure. The Programme for Government envisaged that such a new structure for the MABS would involve strong national leadership and would maximise the current local voluntary involvement in the service.
The Government has decided that this can best be achieved by placing the MABS with the Citizens Information Board. The MABS and Citizens Information Centres complement each other well as both are involved in providing information, advice and advocacy services to the public. In addition, the Citizens Information Board has a long association with the MABS at both national and local level and was involved in establishing some of the original MABS pilot projects.
It is not envisaged that significant savings or additional costs will arise on the assignment of the provision of the MABS to the Citizens Information Board. Rather, the intention is, in line with the Programme for Government, to provide strong management support to the local voluntary companies in the provision of a high quality service to meet the needs of people encountering debt difficulties in today's society. However, cost efficiencies will be realised in the medium to longer term through the integration of support services such as administration and IT.
The legislative provisions to give effect to the proposed changes are contained in the Social Welfare (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill 2008 which is before Dáil Éireann at present. It is proposed that the legislative provisions will be brought into effect by way of a Commencement Order and that a six months period up to July 2009 will be required to complete the administrative arrangements for the transfer of responsibility for the MABS to the Citizens Information Board.