Mr. Tim Molan:

I support Mr. Johnson's comments. Capital is important and we are significantly more capitalised than any banks in this country. My colleague spoke about the model that did not fail. I remember a statement being made in the Houses of the Oireachtas to the effect that there was a €1 billion hole in the balance sheets of credit unions. We never found it because it was not there. Capital is important, as are the reserves. We have over 18% in realised reserves.

One of the issues that was not addressed today, although I mentioned it earlier, is micro-lending. That is very important in terms of the regeneration of our communities and is certainly an area in which we are involved. It is not being picked up in the statistics because it is below commercial levels. I also want to stress the importance of a level playing field. We are the original peer-to-peer lenders but there are others in that space now that are not subject to the same level of regulatory scrutiny as the credit union sector, to the detriment of consumers.