Mr. Chris Gordon:

The Deputy is right, in that these co-operatives already exist. There is a wealth of small to medium-sized enterprises, SMEs, or members of the public who are availing of limited company status under company law and applying co-operative rules. I am glad to hear that the Deputy was a member of one. I am sure that most other committee members are likewise, although they might not even know it, which is quite interesting.

The question of whether it should have its own section is entirely up to Members. I would love to be able to give a professional legal opinion. I would say "Yes". We struggled to set up the Irish Export Co-operative. We should not have had to struggle. We were a group of SMEs that were simply trying to combine our volume to reduce costs. A member of our co-operative might ship out 40 items per year while I might ship out 20 items. If our volumes are combined, I can help to negotiate better deals.

Besides the League of Ireland, another example is Medisec Ireland Limited, which was set up by former Deputy Jim Glennon some decades ago, which provides indemnity insurance for doctors and undercut the best available quote of the time by 50%. The majority of doctors are members. In our case, we are able to reduce costs. Exporting more creates more work, which creates more jobs. One should be able to go to a county enterprise board, new local enterprise office or Enterprise Ireland and not just pick a limited company up off the shelf. As a group, one should be able to point to the co-operatives section in the Bill, pick a co-operative up off a shelf and apply co-operative rules. It is ready made. We should encourage these types of organisation.

My gut feeling is that this matter should constitute a section. It could be simple. It would outline the co-operative rules to be applied and give co-operatives limited company status. The latter provision would not create a difference, as we could refer to the first 15 sections of the new companies Bill. A section would recognise the fantastic work of co-operatives that already exist and provide encouragement to reduce the cost of, for example, payment plans for bank charges or whatever the next issue is that needs a co-operative to make it work.