3,677 judgments were awarded against companies and consumers in the first 10 months of 2015 for failure to repay debts - these awards totalled E345.5m which is up 13% on the same period in 2014 (E304.5m).

2,783 of this year's judgments (76%) were awarded against consumers - these judgments have a value of E314.9m - 91% of the total value of judgments awarded. 1,477 of the judgments against consumers were awarded to the office of the Revenue Commissioner and are valued at E50.6m.

Banks received E230.4m in 341 separate judgments against consumers - an average of over E675,000 per award.

894 judgments were awarded against companies between January and October of this year - these had a combined value of E30.6m. 317 of these judgments were awarded to Local Authorities (City & County Councils etc).

E16.8m in corporate bad debt judgments were awarded to the banks in 23 separate cases.