We owe €2.9bn on 2.17 million personal credit cards. Consumers have been desperately trying to reduce this debt mountain. Payments on credit cards have been greater than the amount spent on them in 10 of the last 12 months. New spending on cards in January was the lowest since April 2005. Consumers paid down €83m more than they spent on cards in January. 
The average credit card debt is €1,200. But the Money Advice and Budgeting Service (MABS) reports its clients owing €8,000 on average on credit cards.

Don’t pay the minimum
Households in financial difficulties have been found to be three times more likely to be only paying the minimum (which can be as low as 1% with MBNA) on their card each month, according to the Law Reform Commission.
It will take 20 years to clear a €8,000 debt if you pay just 2.5% of the outstanding balance every month. In that time you will have paid €6,000 in interest alone.

Switch card
Tesco will give you 0% on balances transfers for six months and on purchases in Tesco. (Typical annual percentage rate (APR) of 14.9%).
MBNA offers 0% for 10 months, but this card issuers has recently admitted overcharging customers by €18m, is aggressive when people are in arrears and can charge interest for two months if you are one month behind in payments.
EBS member card also offers 0% on balance transfers for 10 months.

Get the interest frozen
If are heavily indebted it is possible to have the interest and penalty charges frozen on your card.
Credit card companies don’t admit this, but if you are heavily in arrears they will agree to freeze the interest and penalties.

The best rate on purchases
AIB’s Click card (an interest only account) has the lowest rate on purchases of 8.5%. But the rate for cash withdrawals is 23.4%.
Bank of Ireland’s Clear card has a rate of 9.5%, with cash withdrawals charged at 19.9%.

Clear you card debt
Get a personal loan (rates average at around 11%) or a credit union loan (average rates of around 7% to 8%) and clear the debt.
Cut up the card.

Get a prepaid card
If you need make online purchases then get a prepaid or disposable credit card. You do not need to have you credit history checked to get one of these.
Get a 3v disposable card. You register online then take the card to a retailer, hand over the cash and the card is loaded up. You get a 16-digit visa number. It is free to load up to €20 on the card, then €2.5 for between €30 and €100, and €5 for between €110 and €350. 300,000 people have registered for 3v cards.
Or, get a prepaid Mastercard from www.neteller.com. The physical version of this card can be used to book Ryanair flights without incurring the €5 “administration charge” per flight.
You need to register online, then send off a colour photocopy of your passport and a utility bill. Once registered and “authenticated” you can then load the card online from you bank account. There is no charge for this. If you load the card from a credit or debit card there is a 1.75% charge per transaction.