Alex White (Dublin South, Labour)
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I welcome Ms Carmel Motherway of Motherway Consulting, Mr. Eoin O'Sullivan who is representing Enterprise IT, Mr. Des Gunning who is a member of the Dormant Accounts Fund Disbursements Board and Ms Noreen Byrne of the UCC Centre for Co-operative Studies. This is the third session in our consideration of the draft Credit Union Bill. I will ask delegates to speak briefly to the submissions they have made, but this will be, largely, a question and answer session.

I remind members and delegates that mobile phones should be switched off completely. The meeting is being broadcast by UPC on channel 801. If a mobile phone is switched on, it may interfere with the broadcasting signal and disrupt the broadcast.

I advise that by virtue of section 17(2)(l) of the Defamation Act 2009, witnesses are protected by absolute privilege in respect of their evidence to the joint committee. If they are directed by it to cease giving evidence on a particular matter and continue to so do, they are entitled thereafter only to qualified privilege in respect of their evidence. They are advised that only evidence connected with the subject matter of the proceedings is to be given and asked to respect the parliamentary practice to the effect that, where possible, they should not criticise or make charges against a person, persons or an entity, by name or in such a way as to make him, her or it identifiable.

Members are reminded of the long-standing parliamentary practice that they should not comment on, criticise or make charges against a person outside the House or an official by name in such a way as to make him or her identifiable.

I invite Ms Motherway to make her submission. I wish to explain to Ms Motherway and to the other witnesses that the committee has received all the submissions and the members have had an opportunity to read them. Like many of the submissions we have received, Ms Motherway's submission is very helpful because it focuses on a couple of net issues. From my reading of the submission the crucial issue seems to be the question of restructuring and the dangers she says are associated with the merging of credit unions. I ask her to elaborate briefly on that point, bearing in mind that we have the submission.