Mr. Kevin Johnson:

One immediate deliverable would be an amendment to expand the common bond legislation to enhance it to allow the credit unions, individually or collectively, to lend to approved housing bodies and local authorities. That would be a definite win all round.

The classes of investments and the long-term lending limits are two urgent areas which need to be addressed. We are entering into the discussion with the CUAC implementation group in good faith. There were seven areas highlighted which were not delivered the first time. We would urge the committee to play a monitoring role to ensure it does happen this time. The tiered regulation is like an umbrella which sits over many of the other parts of the movement. It is there for the benefit of the small, medium and large credit unions and we get that proportionality with the nature, scale and complexity factored in properly.

We have no idea how the €1 billion figure was arrived at. At other committee meetings in the past, concerns were raised that there were more than 100 credit unions on solvency watch lists. The one learning we have taken out of all this is the Judge Judy rule. Things were not written down, so it was assumed they did not happen. We have taken on all the burdens of the 2012 Act and have strategies, policies and procedures coming out of various orifices. What we need now is to use all that newfound capability in a constructive way to deliver more services to more members.