Mr. Seamus Maye:

I thank the Chairman for the opportunity to address this issue. We have worked quite closely with Sparkassen in the past. In fact our group, The Public Banking Forum of Ireland, brought Sparkassen into Ireland initially. We are talking to the credit unions, the Credit Union Development Association and the Irish League of Credit Unions. Our indigenous economy cannot and will not thrive until we lower our interest rates and until we have a model something similar to Germany. Where the Public Banking Forum of Ireland slightly differs is that we do not see that it is sensible to bring in a standalone public banking model into Ireland because we already have two, the credit unions and the post offices that are right throughout every community in the country. What we would like to see happening is a working group that would bring the Sparkassen, the credit unions and the post offices together. Let me give an example, New Zealand had a post office bank for 150 years and then they corporatised it and eventually sold it in1989. In 2002 New Zealand realised they had made a terrible mistake and they set up the Kiwibank, and the post offices became the Kiwibank. In the past 15 years, that bank has taken 20% of the market. The people love it, it is a people's bank and it has brought competition into the marketplace. There is absolutely no reason we cannot turn our post offices into a similar model to the Kiwibank.