Barry Cowen (Offaly, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

In the absence of options for investment, credit unions are only lending 20% of their capacity. They have €1 million coming in per week that they cannot use. Under the law and the Central Bank, credit unions can only invest in the pillar banks, but the pillar banks are not giving them a return. The credit unions want to have a role in assisting their own communities. Here is the primary way for them to do that to the benefit of us all. It is a matter that needs to be investigated. The LDA offers a vehicle by which that construct can be put in place. It would also allow for private investment, including by pension funds. It would have the same return, that being, the provision of homes and of vitality in our communities that, despite the best will in the world, many councils and various Departments, including the Taoiseach's, cannot deliver. I was on a council from 1992 on. It is no reflection on councils' willingness to do this work, but the professionalism, capacity and expertise that they possessed in this regard 40 or 50 years ago is not there anymore. With the Department, they have supposedly been doing their best for the past seven or eight years. They are not able to do this as far as I can tell, although, so we have to think outside the box.