Mr. Ed Farrell:

In total there are 30 credit unions, with credits unions from each of the three organisations. My colleague, Mr. John Knox, Mr. Sean Hosford and one of Mr. Kevin Johnson's colleagues sit on a stakeholder implementation project group. That project is being officially launched on Friday by the Tánaiste and the Minister of State in the Department.

There was a soft roll-out last week so about a dozen loans have been made in the pilot project among the 30 credit unions. All the stakeholders in that project are very pleased because a lot of work had to be done to get a simple loan product across the table so that people on welfare with household budgets could apply for and get a loan with less red tape and paperwork than what I outlined. Everybody is very pleased that this is up and running and that a dozen loans have gone out in the first couple of days. There will be more about it on Thursday.