Dara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank Deputy McGrath for giving us this opportunity, almost five months to the day since we spoke about credit unions in the House when, ironically enough, the Acting Chairman was also in the Chair. As I look at the Government's countermotion, there is some progress but some of it is absolutely contradictory. Every Government Deputy who comes in here and inevitably pats the credit union movement on the head and tells it they are great guys and girls and are wonderful and they love them should know for what they will vote tomorrow evening. It is the Minister for Finance's intention to commence the remaining sections of the 2012 Act on 31 December. No matter how many concerns they express about CP88, they will vote to endorse its implementation.

They will also vote to endorse the contradiction in Government policy on credit unions. They support credit unions, and come to the House with fine soothing words about how good they are, but in the countermotion they contradict themselves. One line of the motion states that the Minister for Finance recognises the concerns of the credit union movement with regard to the savings limit of €100,000 but in another line commits to introducing the regulation which will copperfasten it. The Minister for Finance also notes the setting of the savings limit is a matter for the Registrar of Credit Unions, which means the buck is passed straight away. The Registrar of Credit Unions must be answerable to somebody, and presumably it is answerable to the Central Bank of Ireland.

Another line in the motion states that the Central Bank informed the Minister for Finance that it had invited a number of interested parties in the credit union sector to participate in focused dialogue in November 2015, with a view to gaining a better understanding of how credit unions want to develop their business model and identify changes that may be required to the framework to facilitate prudent development. Hello to the Central Bank of Ireland and welcome to the party. In 2015, it finally gets around to having a discussion and a dialogue with the credit union movement on where it wants to go and where it sees itself going. The frustration is that we have a Central Bank and a regulator which do not get it, do not want to get it or, at the very worst, want to strangle the growth of a movement with so much to offer, so much potential and so much interest not the country, but in individual communities and for individual people by giving them a better chance and better opportunities.

Deputy Maloney is right. Figures published today show how much people will spend over Christmas. This is the time of year that people borrow to give their families the best Christmas possible. Those who have the ability and the opportunity will do so through their credit union, but many will not be able to because silly rules are strangling the ability of credit unions, particularly in large urban areas, to make these small loans. People will go to money lenders who have interest rates of 300% 400% and 500%, who do not adhere to any code of conduct and never engage in structured dialogue with the Central Bank of Ireland because they do not want to and do not have to because we have something that is strangling the very growth of credit unions.

In the context of the collapse of the banking sector and the collapse of trust, imagine if somebody had said 2.89 million people in this country have, between them, €11 billion in savings, with €3.5 billion of this out on loan, and €13 billion in assets spread between 342 branches affiliated with the league and a few others throughout the country, and they want to assist in the financial recovery of the country? In 2008 and 2009 we would have gone with arms open to them, but the Government, the Central Bank and the regulator seem to want to restrict them and push them back, and push back the potential and ambition of the movement. When the political system and the House struggled to come up with an idea and a solution to the housing crisis, the Irish League of Credit Unions came to the table with a proposal, money and a willingness to lend this money in the co-operative meitheal spirit on which it is founded. It put its money where its mouth is instead of just talking about it, and yet the Minister, Deputy Kelly, is engaging with it but there is very little sense of urgency. The urgency with which the credit union movement responded to homelessness and community development throughout the country is not replicated in either the regulatory or the political system.

This debate provides an opportunity for the political system to stand up and say we will not just give the credit union movement soft soothing words. Nobody does this better than the Minister, Deputy Noonan. When he comes to the House, he will sit all 3 million members of the credit union movement on his lap, tell them they are great and that he loves them, and Barney-like he will hug them, but he will send them out the door and introduce CP88 and further restrict growth.

It is true that 99% of members may not be affected by the €100,000 limit, but if one receives a redundancy payment, sells a house or wins the lotto one will have a requirement and one should be able to use the local credit union. We have the notion a credit union should go cap in hand to the Central Bank to apply for special permission. The Government is supposed to be reducing regulation and making it easier for SMEs to do business, but here it is putting another regulation in the way of the most local of SMEs, and the most well-founded and grounded of SMEs, namely, the local credit union.

There are many issues on which we should engage with the credit union movement but we are avoiding them. These include SME lending. In June, I spoke about Microfinance Ireland, an organisation which has finally got its act together and doing good things, but this is only in the past 12 months. The credit union movement is ideally situated to partner Microfinance Ireland on loans for SMEs and companies which cannot get funding from Leader or from Microfinance Ireland because of displacement rules. If we gave the credit union movement a role in supporting small local companies which will never export and which are not into IT or technology, it would provide a crucial role and would protect and enhance jobs.

We have spoken about the alternative and the trust we put in our credit unions with regard to moneylenders. In June, we spoke about the investment credit unions have made in their staff, making them do the most up to date courses possible in financial management, prudential management and law. They are briefed and they know their stuff. They are more on top of their brief than many bank officials or, dare I suggest, many people who seek to regulate this evening.

We will not hear of credit unions replacing every counter in their branches on a Friday evening to open on Monday with one cash counter and a load of computers and ATMs, so that when the computer says "No" that one desk has a queue going out the door.

We do not hear of credit unions shutting down branches with minimal or no notice or telling older citizens they can talk to the computer, ring a call centre or bank online, when there is no broadband, never mind the ability to do anything online. We do not hear of credit unions increasing banking fees by 240% in the manner in which all our established banks have done to small businesses in the past number of years. We do not hear of credit unions telling people what day they can lodge coin and what days they cannot, even if it requires somebody to keep cash on a premises, particularly at a time of security worries.

Credit unions are meitheal, rooted in 346 communities across the country. We want to leave them there and strengthen those roots. Instead of patting them on the back, the Government should stand back. Tonight, the difference between November and June is not a question of a month or the temperature; the Government has no time left. It can decide on the basis of this motion not to proceed. There is an election coming and maybe something as substantial as this should really be done by a Government with a new mandate. The Minister of State and the Government Deputies should stand up for the credit union movement as pats on the back will not work on this occasion.

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