Mr. Kieron Brennan:

A fitness and probity regime has also been introduced for board members, which is fairly stringent. Therefore, as Mr. Johnson has said, things have moved on considerably in the past 12 months. Were regulation to progress any further, we would be very concerned that it could become very difficult to get people to serve on boards on a voluntary basis.

Deputy Lawlor referred to a partial guarantee. Were the State to look at some form of underwriting the risk, I think that we all accept that it would have to be on a shared basis. In other words, there would need to be risk on both sides of the fence, for the credit union and for the Government. We could not expect a full guarantee.

Deputy Lawlor also asked about sharing of skills. The option of the central fund is good one, because it would bring consistency across all credit union activity in this area.