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

I welcome what the Minister of State said regarding the advisory committee and the negotiations which he hopes will be finalised by the end of the second quarter. However, I still feel it would benefit the credit union movement if he accepted some variant of the three key amendments with regard to the social projects, because that would clearly provide a legislative basis for involvement. As the Minister of State is aware, the final report of the commission on credit unions asked for shared services and for the possibility of investing locally to be considered on a legislative basis. Perhaps we could shorten the process by considering these amendments.

The Minister of State referred to section 44 of the 1997 Act. We are all familiar with the credit unions and many Deputies are members of unions which have been involved in projects in the social and cultural area in their localities which provide valuable support for local sporting and artistic bodies and so on. However, the limit on the amount that can be spent in this way as prescribed in section 44 of the 1997 Act is 0.5%. Therefore, there is a major constraint on involvement. The example given by Deputy Boyd Barrett, social housing, is a good example of how the credit unions could be involved. One of the appalling results of the current situation is that the social housing programme has effectively collapsed. We are looking for new models, not just of management, but of provision. The Taoiseach gave a commitment there would be a public housing investment programme provision and I hope this will be confirmed over the next week. We desperately need a programme as there are 100,000 people on housing lists.

This Bill offers an opportunity to make this provision in legislation, notwithstanding the point made that the Minister of State will come back on this. Perhaps he should look at the issue again when putting forward amendments in the Seanad.

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