Damien English (Meath West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

It would be worthwhile for us as a committee, when we get to the framework stage, to consider that there has been much positive engagement with the credit union representative bodies and sector and they could come in to discuss the detail and framework. I totally agree with Deputy Doherty that we do not want to have legislation in place that does not facilitate or catch all the scenarios, but we do not want to do the opposite either. I have seen legislation on what credit unions could invest in when it came to housing and housing bodies. It got very complicated over words and we did not get the full benefits we could have got. While we want to get it right, we do not want to tie it up the other way either. As well as a review, we should also engage with the representative bodies after this legislation passes to make sure all our concerns about the framework are dealt with too. We all want to see it working for the credit unions and, more importantly, we want members of credit unions to have the full opportunity to avail of all the services, whether that is the situation relating to mica or pyrite or moving away from a non-traditional bank lender with a mortgage, where people are being hit with extremely high rates. There has been much discussion here. We want to have opportunities here but not to lose either. That is my point and there is a bit of work for us too.