Ms Deirdre Aherne:

Social housing and small and medium enterprise lending are two of the areas that credit unions have flagged they want to get into. Such lending would be a new departure for them. It is not something they can jump into. The way they would do that must be properly devised. There are many restrictions in place, including the common bond from the lending point of view and the restrictions on investments. We are doing work on that to try to free it up and make the process easier. Also, the Central Bank is considering a particular plan in regard to social housing. Its representatives will speak more about that when they appear before the committee.