Michael McGrath (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the three organisations before the committee, namely, the Credit Union Development Association, CUDA, the Credit Union Managers' Association, CUMA, and the Irish League of Credit Unions. This meeting is a great opportunity for the credit union movement to state its case before an Oireachtas joint committee, and in their presentations the witnesses have done this clearly and cogently. It is clear that there is a huge amount of goodwill towards credit unions across the political spectrum. However, it also is clear that this no longer is enough and credit unions now need practical support at a political level to ensure the movement has a viable future. At the outset, I will express my hope that the outcome of these hearings will be that agreement can be reached on an all-party and non-party basis to call on the Minister to press the pause button and to not sign into law the remaining sections of the 2012 Act pending a review of the implementation of the recommendations of the commission. I hope such an agreement can be reached, and I am putting down a marker that I do not believe the joint committee can wait until after meeting the registrar on 16 December to make that recommendation, because the horse could well have bolted by then. That is my view, but it will be a matter for members to make that final decision.

One key issue that continues to emerge is this one-size-fits-all approach to regulation and the non-implementation of the recommendation from the commission for a tiered approach to regulation. I note Mr. Johnson addressed this point in his presentation, in which he outlined three separate strands, but on a day-to-day basis, what difference does this uniform regulatory approach make to credit unions despite the diverse nature of independent credit unions in terms of scale, complexity and their day-to-day operations? What problems is that causing?