Kieran O'Donnell (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

To cut to the chase, some credit unions provide mortgages, but they should be in the market providing competition for small mortgages. I accept the credit union movement went through great difficulty in terms of restructuring, yet when one looks at the metrics, on page 14 of the report, loans have gone up by a very small amount. The loan-to-asset ratio is 27%. There is no reason it should not be in excess of 40%. The arrears appear to be at a reasonable level. Why have loans gone up by such a small amount? Why is there not more lending by the credit union movement? Over the years we have continually heard the credit union movement tell us that the restrictions on lending are too severe. Why have those changes not been made? We have 264 credit unions now and we had 343 in 2015 and no doubt the number was previously much higher than that originally. The number in 2013 was 400. This cuts both ways. I would like to see the credit union movement proactively looking to put a public banking model in place.