Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister for his response. Every side of the House is keen to see credit unions being able to make an appropriate level of investment in a structured regulated entity like a SPV to be in a position to provide funds for housing. From my contacts I understand that the Housing Finance Agency will be providing funding for approved housing bodies and that the SPV for credit unions is now on the back-burner. In practice, it may have been abandoned by the Government.

The Central Bank is often criticised for being slow-moving but it has moved to provide the regulatory framework. When we heard this some time ago we were all rather optimistic that the difficulty was on its way to being solved. However, the Department of Finance is sitting on its hands and is not really facilitating the process.

See this speech in context