Pearse Doherty (Donegal South West, Sinn Fein)

I apologise for having to leave the Chamber. Credit unions have restrictions placed on them and this causes more people to go to moneylenders. I listened to a story on Joe Duffy's "Liveline" where a woman had to go to a moneylender. He sat outside the post office every week, gave her the post office card, she went into the post office to get payments and she handed the payments to the moneylender along with the card. She told the programme she considered committing suicide.

I asked a question about this a number of weeks ago. No illegal moneylender has been prosecuted in the State in recent years. The legislation allows legal moneylenders to charge an annual percentage rate of over 180% per year. Let us take the case of a moneylender lending money in Dublin over a 25-week period. A €500 loan accrues over €470 in interest. That is the case when a person goes to one of the 63 legal moneylenders licensed in this State. They all have different rates but many have rates of up to 180%. This is completely legal. Is it necessary to introduce legislation to curb the interest rates charged by legal moneylenders?

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