Ms Lorraine Corcoran:

Absolutely. I thank the committee for the opportunity to attend the meeting today. Regarding the implications of this, let us take the very simple level of a €500 loan. If it is a credit union loan over a six-month period, the interest a credit union would charge, even at the highest rate, would be around €16. For a typical moneylender rate of 187% APR on a €500 loan, the interest is €150. A person pays back €650. We are looking at a differential of ten times, as Mr. Whelan mentioned in his opening statement. That is a massive amount of interest. A person is paying €150 for the availability of €500. Typically, when we speak to borrowers from moneylenders we see people who would borrow €500 perhaps twice in a single year. That means somebody is paying €300 for the availability of €500 over a 12-month period. That is a large amount of money.

Over the years, in terms of how we have looked at this and working with credit unions to introduce the "It Makes Sense" loan and the personal micro credit initiative in broader terms, we have run a number of focus groups and surveys. Yes, one would typically see a female, often with children and usually in rented accommodation. That would be the typical profile, but also, and Dr. McCarthy mentioned it in her opening statement, we are seeing this creep into other areas and other sections of society. In more recent completed surveys we have seen that not only does one see moneylender borrowers in the C, D and E socioeconomic category, one also sees them in the A, B and C1 category. This is not something that is only prevalent in certain areas. It is far more widespread. We often find that where we would have thought initially that perhaps the proportion of people on social welfare would be far higher, it is not. From what we can see, the disproportionate number of people who borrow from moneylenders are employed and working, so this is not only in one section of society.