Pearse Doherty (Donegal South West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The disposition of the House towards the credit union movement goes without question and is broadly shared across the political spectrum. However, I would agree with the Minister that whether we like their ethos and what credit unions do, it does come down to risk and we must act prudently and responsibly. That is why I agree with the Minister's point on risk. Will the Minister indicate how much credence he will give to the fact that the Central Bank has already categorised the risk weighting of financial institutions through the PRISM system and has deemed the credit unions to be low risk whereas the other financial institutions are considered high risk? Does that classification not answer questions being posed here - that the credit unions have already been categorised by the Central Bank as, in the main, low risk entities?