Victor Boyhan (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I welcome Mr. Farrell and Mr. Malone. I am a member of a credit union and wish to acknowledge the work of the Irish League of Credit Unions. It is a mutual society, its work is highly reliant on voluntarism and other factors and it is community-based. It is to be welcomed that representatives of the Irish League of Credit Unions are here and have made their pitch. The Irish League of Credit Unions makes some very valid points in what is a very concise and to-the-point presentation, for which I thank Mr. Farrell because it is important to get to the kernel of the issue.

Mr. Farrell made the point that Rebuilding Ireland will be reviewed, as the Minister has said. It is timely that the Irish League of Credit Unions' proposal be looked at again in the context of the Government's commitment. As Mr. Farrell pointed out, the Government acknowledged that, among other financial institutions and as part of the Rebuilding Ireland strategy and programme, it would look at the idea of the credit unions. Mr. Farrell said in his opening statement that "there are two roadblocks" and he set them out very clearly:

One is regulatory and requires the Central Bank to change the criteria for permitted credit union investments. The second is the establishment of financial vehicle, as committed to by Government in Rebuilding Ireland.

These are valid points.

I wish to ask Mr. Farrell two questions. First, would individual credit unions outsource all investments and decisions to the proposed special purpose vehicle? He might elaborate on that. Second, is there sufficient expertise within the credit union sector to become involved in offering loans for social housing? Where all this is coming from is important in terms of centrality, decision-making, oversight, policy and governance. There is a huge number of issues here, and proven expertise must be demonstrated by the credit union movement. I thank the witnesses for coming before the committee.