The government is to provide more funding to enable free debt advice for the citizens of Northern Ireland, it was announced this week.

The amount of funding for the Citizens Advice Bureau is to be doubled so that consumers can get free face to face guidance for nothing. With the number of people struggling to cope with debt and the after effects of the credit crunch, Arlene Foster, the Economy Minister, announced that funding would be doubled to £800,000 for two years starting in April 2009.

It was also announced that a further £200,000 would be made available to fund telephone debt help lines, a service which is already well established in the rest of the UK.
Arlene Foster remarked: "The credit boom has given way to the credit crunch and can only increase the demands on a consumer debt advice service. The additional resources now being made available will increase the capacity of the sector to deal with the ongoing problem of over-indebtedness in our society".