Mr. Brian Corr:

To simply answer Senator O'Donnell's question about why local public banking was not dealt with in this report, it was not part of the terms of reference. However, a report was issued by the Department of Finance last year on local public banking. Terms of reference were drawn up after the report on doing an independent evaluation of how local public banking could be delivered. The main recommendation from the original report was that the State would not invest but that local public banking is a good thing and should be advanced. As part of the terms of reference for the independent evaluation, credit unions were referenced as one of the delivery mechanisms for local public banking. I agree with most of the reasons and rationale stated by Senator O'Donnell for why that would be the case.