Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

That clarification is very important. The Minister of State is saying that according to the knowledge of the Department and the Minister, none of the credit unions currently has this in the rules.

As I said, many are opposed to this. Therefore, there will be no AGM this year that will allow for proxy voting. There may be an AGM that would have a motion to change the rules to allow for proxy voting in future years, but that would be done by the membership. That is an important clarification.

The second point on this measure is that, from my understanding, the credit unions do not want it, so where is it coming from? It is not a Covid issue. It is not a case of someone being vulnerable, as he or she has an underlying condition or is self-isolating, and he or she wants a son or daughter to attend the AGM either physically or remotely in the case of someone without access to broadband or that he or she was not technologically savvy. It is not a Covid-19 issue because it will not apply in the Covid-19 era, it will only apply post September next year, if it applies at all. Therefore, where is the demand coming from? Why has the Department decided to go down this road contrary to what has been suggested by the Credit Union Advisory Committee, CUAC, in its report? The submissions indicated clearly that people did not want this type of facilitation, if one wants to call it that, because that is what it is, it is facilitating credit unions to change their rules.

See this speech in context