Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I struggle to see how meeting all of the requirements that I was called on to meet can justify being called lacklustre. The Central Bank and I were asked to put in place a framework under which credit unions and the credit union movement could then decide whether they wanted to be involved in funding social housing and that is what we have done. The work began in June 2016 when a review was carried out on section 35 of the Credit Union Act 1997, which deals with this area. In November 2016, an implementation group produced a paper examining amendments to lending regulations. I wrote to the Governor of the Central Bank outlining my support for this approach. In March, the Central Bank informed credit unions that a review of credit union limits had commenced, noting that this issue had been dealt with in different fora. That led to the publication of a consultation paper and, as I have said, this framework is in place. The Deputy is correct that it now requires the credit unions themselves to determine what projects they want to be involved in, what level of risk they are willing to bear and what level of return they want. That is work that they need to do themselves for the simple reason that, as the Deputy well knows, it is the money of their members at stake.

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