Aideen Hayden (Labour)
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I will make three very brief comments. We have to acknowledge that there has been a significant slimming down of the financial offering, particularly that available to people on low incomes, since the financial crisis. A number of good points have been made about what is expected of the credit union movement, about the uniqueness of the movement and what it has to offer, which is something that, increasingly, our high street banks are not offering. Some banks have even taken measures to remove themselves from public engagement, which the credit union has not done.

In fact, the credit union movement seeks to engage directly with borrowers, which is a significant strength. Deputy O'Donnell asked whether we will reach a point where we will no longer recognise the difference between a credit union and a bank. That is an important point. It is perhaps a matter of policy that this committee needs to revert to with the Minister.

After our previous meeting, we wrote to the Minister to ask him to delay implementing the rest of the legislation until we met the Registrar of Credit Unions. It may now be appropriate to write again to say that we have met the registrar, that concerns remain and that we hope officials from the Department of Finance, the Central Bank and the credit union representative bodies will continue to meet to find an effective solution to the difficulties the committee has identified. Is that agreed? Agreed. The clerk to the committee will send a summary of this discussion to the Minister.

I thank Ms McKiernan and Ms Byrne for appearing before the committee today.