Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The Minister mentioned the concerns of the Central Bank. Is that about the competition element? The point I was trying to make earlier was that these are very much concerns one would make in a Second Stage speech. The Bill passed Second Stage in May. We are now into October. Pre-legislative scrutiny is something the Minister requested on Second Stage. We are now at this point, yet what we are getting are Second Stage issues of concern instead of asking the experts, through the Minister, to come before the committee and give us something more concrete, such as the question I asked earlier. The Central Bank already does that. It intervenes with individual lenders and sets interest rates. How is that different in terms of doing it for moneylenders?

There does not seem to be any meat on the concerns the Minister has raised. I expected something more from the Department in terms of pre-legislative scrutiny. I welcome the Minister's commitment to engage with the committee, and he is a member of the select committee in terms of Committee Stage, but his contribution has not enlightened us much more beyond what has been said on Second Stage in terms of his concerns, the detail of those concerns and how they could be addressed in his view.