John McGuinness (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

On what Deputy Connaughton said about the credit unions and regulation, everyone understands the need for regulation. They are rebuilding their organisation and different branch structures and so on but the regulation that is beginning to have an impact on them is having a negative effect on those who borrow, particularly those on the edge between the moneylender and the credit union. The amount of red tape people have to jump through to get a loan from a credit union is so significant now that it is almost creating an inflexibility within credit unions to deal with loans applications that come before them that can be paid back but which, for some reason or other, regulation is preventing that from happening. The credit unions that I have met have a case. We can over-regulate and over-complicate a sector that has done so much good for the country and for those members it represents. Given the fact that the credit unions have €7 billion to €9 billion in the banks and are ready to activate it in terms of house construction or loans to small and medium businesses, and I am talking about those single employers or family employers at that level within the small and medium enterprise sector, the Department should be proactive in ensuring that money is released into the economy to a sector that is finding it difficult to borrow.