Brian Cowen (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)

-----apart from Deputy Rabbitte's interruptions, I make the point that the legislation was brought forward to provide both for the retention of mutualisation and for demutualisation if a building society so required. Whether building societies demutualised was a matter for the membership of those societies to decide. It was not a question of forcing anything through the House but of facilitating those building societies that wished to demutualise-----

See this speech in context