Mr. Ed Farrell:

Our view is that the credit unions in Ireland are not dissimilar to public banks. There are 3 million people in the Republic and 5 million people on the island. The population of Germany is ten or 15 times that number. It is a bit like the example of England in that one has to divide every balance sheet by ten or 15 if one wants to compare like with like. If the 50 credit unions that are expected to offer current accounts by the end of the year do so and another 50 or 100 credit unions are doing more mortgages, we will be getting there. However, it will still be on an individual basis. There is no buy-in from the regulator or the Government for doing this on a centralised basis. We submitted a paper in 2015 on a centralised system to centralise the risk and the expertise and help credit unions do more of this type of lending but the proposal did not travel. Combined, the 250 credit unions doing this on an individual basis give the total figure. More is being done and that will continue, albeit from a late start.