Mr. Seamus Maye:

Understanding credit and credit creation is very important. If we allow our post office to create credit just like the banks do, it can provide mortgages at 2%. Every billion that the post office would create and lend out would generate over €20 million in income for itself. If, for example, our new Kiwibank-style post office bank had €5 billion out in first-time mortgages, it would create an income of €100 million per year. Effectively, this is self-financing with some money required to kick-start at the beginning. People need to understand the concept of credit creation, which is what the pillar banks do, compared with the credit unions and the post office, which do not engage in this practice.