Mr. Ed Farrell:

What annoys credit unions is that the speech referred to by Deputy Sherlock shows the attitude of the Central Bank towards the credit unions. That attitude has deteriorated over the years since the Central Bank took over the regulation of the credit union movement. There are thousands of volunteers and staff in credit unions working hard every day to keep their 3 million members serviced well. All these regulatory and governance improvements have been made since the 2012 Act, yet this is the thanks or the praise we get. Also frustrating is that all during the CP88 campaign, all the representative bodies went to long yards to stress that the Central Bank had said the current business model is broken and not viable. However, not only do the CP88 rules not allow enhancement to business and services, but they actually reduce and restrict the investments and lending, as we said earlier. We therefore all agreed we would have to do new things, yet the new rules allowed less than the current rules, and certainly not new things.