Tommy Broughan (Dublin North East, Labour) | Oireachtas source

While the Minister asked whether the banking guarantee was required because of a solvency or liquidity crisis, he knows Central Bank regulation has failed, yet he is seeking to impose it again on the backs of credit union volunteers across the country.

It is no wonder there is a lack of demand for credit. One hears of deleveraging where credit union members take their shares, put them against their loans and walk out. Is it any wonder this is happening with the macroeconomic policies this Minister and the Fine Gael Party are pursuing?

It is astonishing there is no regulatory impact analysis attached to this Bill. The Bill proposes to introduce compliance officers and a mini-banking edifice on top of credit unions but there is no regulatory impact analysis of this. The Minister did not provide on Second or on Committee Stage the exact costs of the proposed credit union restructuring board, ReBo, or the new regulatory system. This is a lacuna at the very heart of this Bill which the Minister has refused to address.

I am expressing the real concerns felt by credit union members around the country about the future management of their beloved credit unions. Even though the banks failed us so spectacularly, they still do not want credit unions to emerge as their serious rivals through shared services.

The use of Central Bank regulation in this sector should have been examined more closely by the Minister. The Government should have examined whether the existing credit union regulation system should have continued. It has to be said the record shows the 1997 Act worked very well.

I thank the Acting Chairman for his indulgence as I did not get an opportunity to speak on the Bill previously. I welcome the general supports the Minister will give to the credit union movement. However, there are deeply felt concerns, concerns put to me by the Irish League of Credit Unions, about the type of regulation and supervision the Minister is loading on the backs of the volunteers of the movement, particularly in the context of his failed economic policies and the disastrous decision he made in late 2008 to burden the people with debts they had not incurred.

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