Paul Donnelly (Dublin West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I agree with many of the comments about credit and the high-interest loans that have been mentioned. I worked for many years as a family support worker and I saw at first-hand the scandalous rates that were charged. Indeed, I worked with the credit union and MABS to help many of those families to get out of the grip of the moneylenders. In my experience, many parents, particularly lone parents, were paying their entire children's allowance each month for years to the moneylenders. The witness talked about the hook. Just before people had finished the particular loan, at perhaps €100 or €50 from finishing the loan, they would be offered another loan. It just kept ticking over for a long time.

MABS is a fantastic organisation. I worked with it in the Coolock-Darndale area for 20 years and it had a fantastic relationship with the community. I fully support Deputy Doherty's amendment and hope that it is accepted and that we deal with this issue. I have a question for Mr. Farrell relating to one of my constituents. He has a loan from a credit union. He paid his loan weekly across the counter, as many people do, but during lockdown, credit unions were closed and he was unable to pay until he made different payment arrangements. He recently applied for a car loan, not from the credit union, and then discovered he had a bad credit rating due to the fact that he was unable to pay that loan, even though he has finished paying it. Does Mr. Farrell think that is widespread and has he heard of similar cases? I do not know what the responsibility of the credit union is to ensure that this person's good reputation is restored - he had an unblemished reputation in terms of credit - and that this can be removed in some way from the register.