(The Nationalist, 5 November 1999)
Some time ago I was talking to a friend who was returning to Ireland after some years in the Third World. He was skilled as a carpenter, plumber, block-layer, plasterer, gardener and mechanic. He had learned those trades from finding himself in situations where there was no one else to do such work; being capable and adaptable he learned well in the school of hard knocks. I suggested to him that, with a seemingly constant shortage of workers in Ireland to do home repairs, he would have no difficulty I earning a good living. After all, there are always people looking for small repairs to be done around the house. To my surprise, he said he would rather work at a nine-to-five job than be self-employed. When I asked why, he said that if he were self-employed he would spend half his time working at the job and the other half trying to get people to pay their bills. I knew very well that such a role would not suit him at all.
More recently, I was discussing the problems of farming with a man in the beef cattle trade. He told me that it wasn’t uncommon for people not to pay for cattle they had bought but to delay for as long as they could get away with it. ‘Let him wait for it’, seemed to be the attitude.
And have you ever wondered why funerals cost so much? Part of the cause is that there are people who engage an undertaker to provide funeral services for a family member who has died and then never pay the bill. What can the undertaker do about it? Imagine what the public reaction would be if an undertaker took a bereaved family to court for non-payment of funeral expenses! So the net result is that the loss is passed on to those who do pay their bills.
And Michael Heseltine, who was deputy Prime Minister in John Major’s government, stated in the British parliament that he never paid a bill until he had received a solicitor’s letter for it.
The Oireachtas enacted legislation in recent years laying down penalties for non-payment of bills beyond a certain waiting period, because some small businesses had gone bankrupt on account of cash-flow problems due to late payment or non-payment of accounts.
But legislation alone can never deal adequately with such a problem. There remains the question of conscience for you and me. Isn’t there great peace of mind in being able to know that you have paid your debts, that you don’t owe anyone money? You can then look people straight in the eye. Many older people had a horror of being in debt, and, apart from a mortgage, never went into it. How strange it is that in the time of the Celtic Tiger, social service organizations are recruiting new staff to help people cope with the problem of indebtedness and the inability to manage their financial affairs.
Personally, I’d rather be broke and do without things than be in debt or keep anyone waiting for payment that was due to them. There was a saying that ‘A man in debt is caught in a net.’ I’d prefer to be free any day.