Thomas Pringle (Donegal South West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the opportunity to contribute to the Private Members' Business tonight and pay tribute to Fianna Fáil for organising a discussion on a very important issue in respect of the future of our credit unions across the country. It was very interesting to listen to the contributions of Members and of the Minister of State regarding the importance of the credit union movement to everybody across society. There is so much goodwill among Members of the House towards the credit union movement that one wonders why there is no positive engagement or positive policy regarding the growth and development of credit unions. The only answer one can come up with is that the banks call the shots and are driving policy.

The policy of this Government has been to push big finance over the options the credit unions can provide. This policy pushes the for-profit sector and the banking sector and looks after them. I have no doubt that for many years the banks would have loved to see the end of credit unions, or to see credit unions being forced to become like banks, so that the banks would be in a position to take them over and subsume them into their business model, which would be a disaster. Credit unions have been a lifeline for many communities across the country. Hundreds of thousands of people have depended on them for finance, and the banks pale into significance compared to the trust people have in the credit unions.

We need - although it is belated and probably will not happen in the lifetime of this Government - a positive policy towards credit unions. We need to examine the restrictions in section 35 of the Credit Union Act 1997 to ensure that credit unions can develop and we need to look at how credit unions can provide services for people across the country. There are so many people across the country who are unbanked and who are penalised financially because of that. The credit unions can provide that role. The idea of credit unions and post offices working together has been raised here before. These two institutions are vital across our society and are very trusted. They could come together to provide financial services for citizens that are solely for the benefit of citizens and not the benefit of private equity investors. That is why we have not seen any positive engagement or any move to develop credit unions and allow them to invest in our communities: they are for the benefit of our citizens and, unfortunately, the thrust of Government policy is to benefit the banking sector and forget about the citizens.

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