Seán Sherlock (Cork East, Labour) | Oireachtas source

In respect of sectoral leadership, if I was reading that as a CUDA, CUMA or ILCU member and if Ms McKiernan was telling me that there is a need, in her own words, for greater sectoral leadership and a fuller understanding of risks involved to develop a roadmap of business model development, I might take issue with that. In respect of our interactions with the sector on Tuesday, there was consistency in its approach with no outliers. CUMA, CUDA and ILCU were represented. They would argue that they are showing leadership and that they are more than willing to engage. The Chairman has used the merry-go-round analogy. They have been on the merry-go-round with the Department of Finance and they contend with the Central Bank as well to show the type of leadership and develop the innovation and business models Ms McKiernan is speaking about here, but there still seems to be a resistance to that. It would be my contention that by any objective analysis, they have shown leadership because they have gone through the rigours of restructuring and, with some outliers, have adhered to the restructuring process as regulated by the Registrar of Credit Unions.

To use Ms McKiernan's language, they now want to move into that multi-step of developing the sector again, growing the business model and encouraging new lending with a younger demographic of borrowers. It seems that neither they nor Ms McKiernan are a million miles apart but there is something within the chasm and vacuum that needs to be unblocked. I do not know if it is an issue of perception regarding how the Central Bank perceives the sector and how the sector perceives the Central Bank. Somebody needs to do a bit of mediation because if I listen to Ms McKiernan and the intervention of the representative bodies, I can see that they all want to go in the same direction but there is some blockage in the way that needs to be worked through because they have already gone through the rigours of the regulatory process.

I know Ms McKiernan is not paying lip service to the idea of recognising the importance of the sector, but there is some responsibility on the part of the Central Bank to ensure the sector progresses back into productive lending sooner rather than later because this has been going on too long. The Credit Union Advisory Committee report has been in existence for a while and the implementation group only met in the first quarter of this year so we need to see progress by the second or third quarter because we have already told the Department of Finance that we want it to appear again before this committee. I hope the Central Bank would appear before the committee as soon as possible to see what progress is being made on these issues.