Mr. Ed Farrell:

As Deputy Doherty has said, we tend to find moneylenders charge ten times the interest for a €1,000 loan over a six or 12 month period. Credit unions, by law, are capped, as it were, at a rate of interest rate of 12% per annum. Moneylenders are capped at 200%, or 300% if charges are included.

As Mr. Joyce said, there might not be a cap at all but it is certainly in the 200% or 300% space if there is. The credit unions cannot impose any extra charges so it is a maximum of 12% in total. There are no other charges on transactions or anything like that. Some credit unions would charge less than 12% but on that sort of small money, I suppose, it is about the social ethos of credit unions. It is not that a credit union would make much of a return at 12% but this was the raison d'être of credit unions when they started in the late 1950s in Ireland and access to credit was a problem for many people. That reason has stood the test of time in the 60 years since credit unions started.

Credit unions exist to facilitate people who have an ability and willingness to repay. That is important as well as it is other members' money that credit unions lend. The board and staff of each individual credit union have a fiduciary responsibility to govern the credit union and mind the money. One member's money might be lodged as savings and this facilitates the sourcing of credit for other members. There are over 200 individual credit unions in the Republic of Ireland and 500 or 600 branches of credit unions within the Twenty-six Counties. It is what they are there for. That is if there is a willingness and ability at all for the proposal, the borrower, the client or the member.

They are called "members" because they own the credit unions and are not shareholders as such. They are financial co-operatives. That is what credit unions are for and members should be encouraged to go in and see if credit can be arranged for them. It is an average of ten times cheaper than we have seen from the bigger moneylenders or door collection moneylenders.