Ms Ita Mangan:

There were quite a few questions and I will try to take them in sequence. I can identify with Deputy Byrne. I bought my first washing machine from the ESB as well almost 40 years ago and I am familiar with the system.

In response to the Chairman's final question, I do not know. I think there is but I did not ask. That is the honest to God truth. There probably is and it was remiss of me not to have asked but that is the reality.

Deputies Collins, Ryan and Bannon raised the issue of reconfiguration. First, there will be a new board coming in as well as myself. There will other members on the new board and all the decisions will have to be made by that board. No decisions have been made on reconfiguration or exactly how things will be done. Certain proposals have been made but no decisions have been made. Many of those proposals will need to be costed and we will need to see how exactly they would work out in practice. Everyone will recognise there is a tension between having everything locally and having everything of high quality. One has to come to a reasonable accommodation on those two issues.

While I have lived in Dublin for the vast majority of my life, I grew up in the country and I recognise the need to improve the pace of rural development. I am familiar with all the arguments about post office and Garda station closures and the consequences for local communities, etc. The CIB of itself cannot make a huge contribution to that but it can make some contribution. A rural development strategy is being prepared by the Government and that is the way froward on that.

The Chairman raised the issue of the services provided within the community and by the community and by volunteers. Again, there is a tension between the requirement to provide professional quality services - they do not have to be delivered by professionals; they can be delivered by volunteers - and the requirement on volunteers to get up to the speed on the various issues. Members will be familiar with much of the detail of social welfare legislation, about which I know a great deal, but it is extremely complex and it is difficult for volunteers to remain up to speed. The contribution made by volunteers and community groups must be balanced with the requirement that everything should be absolutely clear and correct because people are making decisions based on the information we provide. It is important that the service should be fully professional in the best sense of the word, even though it may not necessarily be delivered by professionals on all occasions.

On the issue of money advice, credit unions, loans, etc., the CIB does not make the rules about what credit unions do but we all know why they ran into problems and there is no point rehearsing all those arguments. Perhaps we will get to the stage where they recover sufficiently to enable them to go back to making the small loans members mentioned and facilitating people. We need the concept of the micro-loan as a separate stream of funding from credit unions, the post office or another source. We need that separate stream to keep people away from moneylenders because it is not in any of our interests to have 360,000 people still using moneylending facilities.

Deputy Butler raised the issue of credit rating. New credit rating arrangements will come into effect next year. I appreciate what he said. When people fail to meet certain bills, they become ineligible for other credit. The micro-loan concept could get them over that in that the availability of the loans could be set up in such a way that it would not be dependent on a previous credit rating or that a credit rating for large loans would not affect a person's ability to take a micro-loan.

I have covered all the major issues raised because members made the same point several times. I thank Deputy Connaughton for suggesting an honorary award but I would happily do without any such dame awards.