Ms Anne Marie McKiernan:

As I mentioned earlier in my remarks, despite all the environmental factors, such as a low yield environment and the former contraction in the consumer lending market, and despite some of the credit unions' structural characteristics, such as an ageing membership base and a narrow product offering, we see that a number of them have managed to build financial and operational resilience, be viable on a forward basis, build their membership bases to be more borrowing-oriented and broaden their products in a more viable way. That is a strength to build on and demonstrates that many other credit unions, notwithstanding some of the difficulties they must deal with, have the opportunity to follow that route. I referred to restructuring because it provides an additional opportunity to realise benefits that have not yet come through. I think there are trends under way in this regard. The first one was undertaking the mergers; the second will be to realise the benefits for them. When that comes to pass, it will put the sector on a much sounder footing to deal with its requirements.