Eamonn Maloney (Dublin South West, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I welcome this debate on the credit union movement and the Central Bank regulations. I thank Deputy Ó Fearghaíl for making a few minutes available to me to make my contribution.

The credit union movement in Ireland is one of the great success stories of modern times. One of the reasons for this, apart from the fact that it has almost three million members and €8 billion in assets, is its history. From the bottom up, men and women in the movement have volunteered, which is one of its great qualities. One of its great strengths and, by that token, one of the reasons it has been so successful and widespread in terms of its presence in villages, towns and cities, is that it is a great movement. It is a movement on a par with others in that it has its roots very much within communities throughout the country. One cannot make many comparisons of the quality of service that the credit union movement has provided. In years gone by it was commonly referred to as "the working man's bank," although one now has to refer to "the working man's or working woman's bank," with which I have no difficulty, as, I am sure, no man or woman has either.

The movement has evolved over time and is now much more sophisticated, and quite rightly so, because of the changes brought about by technology and so on. The movement has been true to its origins in that it is deeply rooted in society. There is a widespread difficulty with moneylenders in this country and the interest rates they charge. They cause misery for the families who fall victim to them. The first port of call for such families is the credit union movement, rather than banks. That is the experience in the constituency I represent, which is largely working-class.

As Deputy McGrath said in his introduction, we must cherish the movement and not put it on a par with banks. The credit union movement has a completely different character from the banks. Some of its functions may be similar, such as lending money and taking in money and there is nothing wrong with this, but the credit union movement is not a banking movement in the traditional institutional sense that we understand banks, and nor should it be as it would take away from its character. Much of the regulation to which we are referring is coming from the Central Bank. No disrespect to the Central Bank, but I often say that if we had a choice in 2007 or 2008 between the Central Bank and some of the banks running the country's monetary system and having the credit union movement running the financial system, we would not have had the mess we have just come through.

There is a touch of irony when one looks at some of what is coming from the Central Bank. I refer in particular to CP88, which sets out a template for the credit union movement. The Central Bank has many questions to answer, as we discovered during the banking inquiry. We do not have an inquiry into the credit union movement because there is no similarity whatsoever, but we see the Central Bank coming in with regulations, as obviously it is saturated by having to control all institutions.

I come back to my original point. They are two separate entities and CP88 will restrict and handicap the credit union movement. The Minister was quite practical last June when replying to me in the House with regard to reviewing the situation. As Deputy McGrath stated, he should withdraw the section and not sign it. The Department of Finance can always come back to the credit union with regard to this regulation if it is needed, but at this moment it is not needed.

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