Mr. Gerald McConville:

Another way to look at it is that one could describe it as a credit card but without the excess of charges, the high interest rates, penalties and so on which go with credit cards. It is a similar type idea but because the credit union operates on a not-for-profit basis, our motivation is to allow people to budget and to manage their money prudently. As I said earlier, we envisage that it would be a low limit and we would have no difficulty with that being written into the legislation or being done by ministerial order or whatever. We would see €3,000 as being probably the upper limit of that type of account. In terms of encouraging people, it would be more proper to call it a flexi-account rather than a flexi-loan, which is how I referred to it, but that was in terms of the credit agreement and so on.

When people need to borrow, they will know they have that comfort if they need the money for Christmas, holidays or whatever. However, even when they do not need the money, they are used to putting in €10 or €20 per week. If they go into credit, they get interest or a dividend on their credit. It works both ways in that it encourages savings and prudent management of people's finances.