Mary Butler (Waterford, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Everyone accepts there are clear benefits to having audited accounts for openness and transparency. We seem to have a general consensus that the Department is supportive of introducing audit exemptions, as are the witnesses. It is to be hoped some common ground can be found on this matter.

On the reduction of members required for registering a co-op from seven to three, all co-operatives are different. Whereas three may work for some, it might not work for others. Seven could be too many for another. A threshold of five was not used at all. Could that be a way forward? As Senator Humphreys said, the average number of employees in a SME is 3.5 people. Seven may be a burden for some co-operatives.

It may not be burdensome for people on group water schemes, which may have dozens of houses.

The fact that the Department is engaging is very welcome. The committee's job is to scrutinise this Bill and, in fairness, the document we received from the Centre for Co-operative Studies is excellent in setting out the issues. On balance, it supports the proposed amendment to reduce the number of members required to establish a co-operative to three. The task of the Department is to prove now that having three members may not work. On balance, people feel that having three members will work. I am involved with many committees and I see three as a small number. If the choice was between three members and seven, I would consider having five. The more people there are at the coalface of an organisation or a co-operative, the more helpful it would be. I accept, nonetheless, that there may be times when, in the context of setting up a specific co-op relating to food or agriculture, it may not be possible to get more than three members. The Department still has a body of work to do.