Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Tuesday, 23 October 2018

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach

Report on Local Public Banking: Discussion

1:30 pm

Photo of Seán SherlockSeán Sherlock (Cork East, Labour)
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I take some comfort from the representative organisations' interventions today. If I read them correctly, they are stating they are open for business and ready to adopt new mechanisms to enhance their offerings and try to move into the very space referred to where there is a gap. The proof of this is, for instance, in CUMA and Mr. Molan's intervention on the 2016 regulations, in which he stated that in March commercial loans accounted for 1.9% of the €4.5 billion credit unions had out on loan, equivalent to 0.51% of their assets. Do the delegates take some comfort from these proceedings that there is scope, subject to a move by the Central Bank, the Department of Finance and, one hopes, these Houses, for the credit union movement to step in and plug that gap?