Ms Anne Marie McKiernan:

The fund was set up as an opportunity to fund involuntary resolutions or cases where credit unions in excessive difficulty and posing a threat to their members' safety could be resolved under the appropriate legislation. Five cases have been taken to date. While the net cost to the fund is at the lower end of expectations, that also reflects the fact that we have been able to use the private funds of the sector to save some of those taxpayers' money. We have used €25.5 million from that savings protection scheme, SPS, fund.

The amount that could potentially be used from what is in the resolution fund will depend on a number of factors, including the risks which credit unions take on at present and could potentially take on in the future, how they manage those risks, what losses could arise and how they would impact on the financial resilience of credit unions. We are not going to pre-empt what might happen in the future to make an estimate of how many cases there might be or what funds might ultimately be drawn down. Allowing appropriate resolution in the sector to protect members' funds by having a fund available there is an important backstop.