Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

My amendments deal with the issues being discussed, but with a slightly different formulation. These are among the most important amendments being proposed by the Irish League of Credit Unions. When I discussed the proposals with representatives of the league they put it to me that we have had a catastrophic failure of the for-profit banking model. The credit unions are asking that the Bill, as recommended in the commission's report, should facilitate the promotion and expansion of an alternative financial services model that is not for profit and remove any impediment to the promotion and expansion of that alternative model. The case for doing that is overwhelming, given the failure of the for-profit model.

Here is a model that does not carry the guilt of crashing our economy and provides an alternative way of doing financial services that is democratic and socially focused. We should do everything in our power, given the current circumstances, to expand, develop and promote that model and remove any obstacle or impediment to its expansion. That is the essence of the amendments. Part of doing this is to allow credit unions to expand the range of financial services they make available to their members so that those services can be accessed everywhere in the country and the full range of services can be offered by credit unions to provide an alternative and a choice for people.

The fact that many for-profit banks are closing branches, particularly in small towns and rural areas, often means that a credit union is the only financial services outlet in an area. In that context, it is even more important that they be able to offer the full range of services to their members throughout the country and not be limited or impeded from doing that in any other way.