Mr. Ed Farrell:

It was trialled initially with 30 credit unions and it then went nationwide with just over 100 credit unions involved now. As Ms O'Connor said, it was a multi-stakeholder group so the representative bodies of the credit unions, Citizens Information Board and the Department of Social Protection were involved. In his opening address, Mr. McCrory gave it as an example of how we can make a great success of something where we find willing partners. It was done with the Department of Social Protection and the Citizens Information Board under the former Minister of State, Senator Humphreys, and the then senior Minister, Deputy Burton. Even more recently we had a very positive meeting with the current Minister, Deputy Varadkar, as we were moving from a pilot to the nationwide roll-out.

We have 100 credit unions covering more or less every county. The geographical base would be large because the larger towns' credit unions would cover a lot of a county and the people working or living in that hinterland can be a member of the credit union.

A larger than normal provisioning requirement for the pilot was agreed to by the multi-stakeholder group. The good news was that when the pilot was finished it was agreed by all, and the Central Bank is on that stakeholder group, that the arrears were not at a level that required it. I believe it is running at only approximately 2% arrears. The people who have been dogged by the moneylenders are very happy to be able to get back in. The credit unions had almost been afraid to lend to them due to the restrictions and whatnot that had been on them. Everybody is happy to get back in.

The credit unions are not making any money out of it. By law, credit unions cannot charge more than 12% interest, whereas moneylenders are allowed to charge percentage rates in the hundreds. There are numerous reports on the unfairness of that. We have a close relationship with English credit unions and they are allowed to charge 3% per month, which is 36% to 40% APR for that type of payday, as they call it in England, or small lending in that moneylending space. They can charge far more. That is mentioned in the CUAC report. The maximum interest rate of 12% was probably okay 20 or 30 years ago but there is a need to look at that again. We could do a very good social job by helping these people move away from the moneylenders, but at more than 12% we could make a few bob on it as well so it would be a win-win situation for everybody.