Mr. Brian McCrory:

Using a very simple model, one can look at a credit union as being a simple shop. If it is taking in money, it is taking in stock. Unless that stock is going out the front door in some shape or form, there is no point in continuing to stock the shop. It then takes the prudential decision to stop buying the stock until it can deal effectively with what it already has. Through restrictions on who they can lend money to, the amount, the nature of the person, etc., credit union lending has deteriorated over a number of years since 2015 because of an edict from the Central Bank as to the circumstances in which a credit union can lend money to an individual. There is a direct correlation between the decline in lending and that.

As Mr. Johnson also said, it is about the opportunity to be able to invest funds in other programmes that can earn a social dividend and a capital dividend for the credit union and the community at large. Those opportunities are denied to us. We are forced to become wholesale collection agencies for banks to have our moneys on deposit. The people who benefit from that are the banks, not the community and not the citizens of this country who have amassed billions that are sitting on deposit.