Arthur Spring (Kerry North-West Limerick, Labour) | Oireachtas source

It is high time the Central Bank and the regulator were reminded that no credit union anywhere in the country provided money for the building of an apartment block in Ballsbridge or the purchase of contracts for any of the financial institutions which brought the country to the state it is in or bought hotel or holiday resorts in Bulgaria. A credit union is a community-based institution and the foundation block is volunteerism. I listened to Ms Cullen and Mr. Brennan talk about the British model. I am member of the economic forum of the British-Irish Parliamentary Assembly, which examined the credit union movement in the UK and Ireland. They seek to emulate what we have here. They see it as the best example of what the credit union movement should be. To that end, one must put people in the frame of mind that credit unions fill a gap in society that traditional financial institutions have not wanted to fill because it was not profit-making and was based on volunteerism. Something should resonate with people. Moneylenders are the last resort for most people and credit unions often fill the gap in a prudential, meaningful and community-based manner by lending people money when they need it. They have an established relationship with those people. Despite the fact that one is dealing with people whose financial circumstances are not phenomenal, the credit union movement in Ireland is in very good shape in comparison with other financial institutions. Let us give that message loud and clear to the Central Bank and tell it that what it is looking for is over-the-top. When one is looking at liquidity and risk management, one is getting it wrong. The weighting attached to car loans and sending people to universities is not the same as the contracts for financing blocks of apartments and hotel resorts in Bulgaria. The regulator needs to look at the socioeconomic and community side of this. The legacy of the boyos in AIB and the rest is not what the credit union movement is involved in.

Coincidentally, the issue of AIB branch closures throughout the country was raised in Topical Issues in Dáil Éireann. There have been over 50 closures. I come from a rural constituency and there will be an enormous area over north Kerry and west Limerick that will be without banking services. There are credit unions in there and if the circumstances are such that if one restricts who can be involved in the running of credit unions, one will give away the lifeblood of that which has kept it there and brought it forward. I get this in droves and I would like to help the credit union movement as much as possible. Does the delegation have a model in respect of lending, the risk element and the weighting of money we can give to the Central Bank in order to make that stack up because I think this has become over-the-top? As parliamentarians, we need to get behind and recognise the credit union movement because of all that is good in it and what it has achieved to date.