Aengus Ó Snodaigh (Dublin South Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

A change was made to what became the Social Welfare Act 2012 which excluded credit unions from the household budgeting package. I shall outline its effect on Travellers, in particular, who availed of the facility to pay for mobile homes through An Post using the Lough payment scheme, which relates to the Lough Credit Union. I have argued with a number of Ministers about this matter and plus MABS and others have argued for the scheme's retention. The anomaly was an inadvertent exclusion but once it was excluded, we had to ensure that it worked. The Tánaiste and Minister for Social Protection introduced a pilot scheme last year, through the credit unions and MABS, to ensure the scheme worked. I have been informed that the pilot scheme which dealt with micro budgeting and small loans worked quite well. I hope such a scheme will continue into the future. My amendment refers to the credit union. I hope my proposal will benefit people who avail of the credit union movement, in particular those who have no other source of funding for major outlays such as upgrading a mobile home or making home improvements. I want to ensure that people can have moneys for such outlays taken out of their payments with the agreement of the recipient and the credit union. The credit union movement does not allow people to overextend their finances. My amendment seeks to help people manage their payments. MABS was set up to help people manage what little money that they have and ensure they pay their ESB bills, etc., which is why the household budgetary services was created. Unfortunately, the 2012 Act excluded the credit union movement.