Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

Some of that was addressed in the opening statements. I just wanted to get a handle on where the organisations stand. My party and I are long-time supporters of public banking. With the pillar banks not meeting the needs of certain sections of society, it would be a terrible crime if we missed the opportunity to deal with the issue of public banking, whether that means the credit unions being able to tap into SME lending in a bigger way. I fear that time will pass and the matter will get kicked into this forum. There will be some discussion and we will then hear that there is a bit more lending from the pillar banks, that there might be even more the following year and that the problem has been resolved. At that point, we will be back to the monopoly scenario.

I am not convinced that the credit unions are going to move into this area any time soon. I would not suggest that the credit union movement should jump in. The last thing we want to be doing is fast-forwarding five years and asking the credit unions how they got it so wrong, why their underwriting was not done and why they did not have the skills to deal with this. That is the challenge. When there are so many different independent credit unions, how do we bring them all together and release them from some of the shackles on them? A consultation paper is going to be published. However, I am concerned that we equip credit unions with the necessary infrastructure and capabilities in order that it might meet some of the needs a Sparkasse model would meet. If the credit unions are going to move into that area, what needs to happen and how can we move matters forward?