Mr. Ronan Hession:

I think the penetration rate is over 60%. People in the Irish League of Credit Unions may have better figures than that. By comparison, in the UK it is less than 5%. Credit unions are a big part of the landscape in Ireland in a way they are not in other countries, even where they are popular.

In 2011, when the Minister made the statement, he was working on advice and stress tests that said that under certain scenarios - and there was a lot of uncertainty internationally, including existential issues around the euro and Europe - he would put the finance in place to ensure that whatever happened there would be support to let the credit union movement correct itself and move on.

At that stage, a commission on credit unions was sitting which concluded its work about six or eight months later. That commission's report involved the credit union movement, the regulator, the Department and other independent members, including Mr. O'Toole who has been on this journey over a number of years. The commission's report had a wide range of recommendations, including everything from the sector's business model to stability supports, resolutions, stabilisation and the work ReBo is doing, as well as the regulatory stuff.

The important sequence was that constant remarks were being made to the effect that, having seen the position of the banks, who knows what would be in the credit unions. The Minister addressed this issue in an up-front manner at the time when he decided the Government would provide funding and that the advice received was that, under certain stressed conditions, the issue could escalate into a bigger problem. His position was that the Government would put money on the table first to give people assurance that it was committed to addressing the issue. The commission on credit unions then issued advice on how best to target this money. Since then, what has emerged in the figures from the Credit Union Restructuring Board, ReBo, and more widely is that the credit union movement had previously taken a number of steps. For example, the level of provisioning for bad debts increased from approximately €200 million in 2006 to €800 million in-----