Gerry Horkan (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

For most people to borrow they must have saved in the first place. To save means putting in deposits but to do that brings us back to the issue we are in. Part of that is the investment capability in terms of what the credit unions are allowed to invest in, which is quite restricted. I am sure there are reasons it is as restrictive as it is. On Tuesday, we got issues on the very strict liquidity requirements and the very restrictive class of investments. It means they do not have anywhere for these deposits to go. Is there scope in terms of where they can invest these deposits in the shorter term at least? It is a chicken-and-egg situation if one cannot bring people in to make a deposit. One is usually not going to lend to people before they have established a track record of savings and can see that these are people who are able to put away money so that they can borrow and then repay the borrowing. Ms McKiernan alluded to the fact the profile is getting older and people's mortgages and outgoings are getting smaller as their incomes improve. As such, they are saving. However, credit unions are trying to attract people to come in. If they have surplus funds, they are not able to give them to the credit unions because they are already in the situation where they have too much cash. Where do we go in terms of the investments? Is there scope to allow a wider range of relatively risk-free investments? Has that been looked at?