Eamon Gilmore (Dún Laoghaire, Labour) | Oireachtas source

The position in respect of Newbridge is that the assets and liabilities, excluding the building, have been transferred to Permanent TSB by way of the High Court order. In addition to that, the Governor of the Central Bank has requested a financial incentive of up to €53.9 million, which has been agreed to by the Minister for Finance. That money amounts to €23 million in cash up front to fill the hole in the balance sheet, restructuring and integration costs of €4.25 million, €2 million for other transferring liabilities and a risk share on the transferring loans whereby the State will absorb 50% of the losses where loans perform below their transfer values and 50% of the gains where they perform above their transfer values. If these loans were written off immediately with no recovery, it would result in an additional €24.7 million total cost.

Without the transfer to Permanent TSB, Newbridge would have been liquidated. There would have been a loss of €1.1 million in unprotected savings.

Other options were examined concerning Newbridge. As I mentioned earlier, there was the option of amalgamating with another credit union. The Central Bank also assessed other options, including the proposal by the Newbridge action group. That was rejected at the time because it did not provide a satisfactory solution to the capital deficit.

The Government will support whatever efforts are made to re-establish a credit union in Newbridge, whether that is a credit union from somewhere else establishing in Newbridge, or the local community establishing a new credit union there. We stand ready to support that because the Government has a strong commitment to the credit union movement and the work it does. We want to see successful credit unions and we hope that we will not have other situations like Newbridge.

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