Ms Carmel Motherway:

At a very early stage. Deputy Donohoe's second question relates to self-determination in the context of risk appetites. He needs to get ready for this: we have these instruments called credit policies. The credit policy of a credit union, its share policy and some joined-up thinking in the context of the credit control or collections policy are what constitute the risk appetite of that credit union. Effectively, certain things suggested in the heads of the Bill would go into that territory and would reduce the flexibility credit unions currently have in the context of setting their credit policies. As a result of the fact that we can only deal with those who are members of the co-op and because of our operating forum's co-operative structure, there should be some degree of comfort for the members of this committee, as legislators, in that the knock-on effects are confined to that co-op in the event of its failing. However, I would be the first to agree with what the Central Bank is doing on the prism side of things in the context of its reference to impact of a failure, even at a low-risk firm. There are may low-risk firms and they will not have that big an impact. There are only 400 or so credit unions and everybody involved with them knows everyone else. One of them has a big impact. So I absolutely take the Deputy's point.