Alex White (Dublin South, Labour) | Oireachtas source

We have the submission from Mr. Pat Owens, who represents St. Mary's parish credit union in Limerick. It is critical of the draft scheme in general and specific terms. We can discuss the broad philosophy in the draft but he goes as far as saying the Bill makes no attempt to preserve what is good about credit unions or to enshrine their ethos in legislation. He is concerned the ethos is undermined by draft legislation and it reproduces a standard banking model that is not appropriate. He agrees, however, that a transparent regulatory system is required and targets should be set out but that is not what the Bill does. The governance standards required are not appropriate to credit unions and should not be the same standard as those applied to multinational financial institutions. Mr. Owens also expresses concern about volunteerism being threatened by some of the provisions of the draft scheme and about the requirement for credit unions to merge. His advice is the entire legislative process should be postponed for 12 months because it is being rushed.

I want to dispose of the specific points as well but I wanted to make sure we put this in context because Mr. Owens is critical. Classes of credit union were mentioned and we know there is a three tier structure envisaged in the legislation that is asset based but Mr. Owens thinks that should be extended to a five tier structure, still asset based.