A survey of 20 European countries puts Ireland close to the bottom of the table when it comes to businesses here getting paid by their customers. The country is among the third slowest when it comes to settling bills.
The situation it getting progressively worse, according to research carried out on behalf of Intrum Justitia, Europe's largest debt collection company. On average, an Irish business will wait 51 and a half days to get paid. That is a day and a half longer than this time last year.
The research shows that Irish consumers take 42 and a half days on average to settle an invoice. Fellow businesses take 60 days. Public sector organisations are the real laggards as they take just under 70 days to pay suppliers.
Intrum Justitia says the total amount of overdue bills in the 25 states of the European Union is as much as €250 billion, which equals the entire GDP of a country the size of Austria.
'Late payments and long delays will not help the economy grow, on the contrary,' commented Nick Biggam, Managing Director of Intrum Justitia Ireland. 'The fact is that payment habits damage business and disrupt trade, which hinders economic growth,' he added.
Intrum Justitia says this year's report again demonstrates that small and medium-sized enterprises are especially hard hit by late payments. They are more vulnerable to variations in cash flow, they often rely on a limited number of customers, and they are often suppliers to large firms who are know to delay payments to a greater extent than smaller companies do.
The Nordic countries, especially Finland and Sweden, are still the best payers in Europe, while Portugal, the Czech Republic and Greece are still at the bottom of the European payment league.
