Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

I thank Deputy Harkin for bringing forward this Bill, which we are very happy to support. When the for-profit banking system drove this economy over a cliff, along with its developer friends, the Government moved heaven and earth to prop it up.

Emergency legislation was flowing like confetti. It involved late-night sittings, huge urgency and €60 billion to keep them going. As for how they thank us, Ulster Bank, although not a beneficiary of the bailout, it got bailed out elsewhere, is upping and leaving, and the other banks, the pillar banks, are shutting down branches left, right and centre. We have the highest interest rates in Europe. There is a general disregard for the public, for any social objectives and for any objective other than the bottom line as far as they are concerned, and yet we did everything to sustain them, as previously we had done everything essentially to facilitate their racing greed with the dire consequences that had.

In contrast, there is a lack of urgency in terms of supporting credit unions and their members. Credit unions have completely different, absolutely benign objectives to serve their members. They are not about profit and instead are about trying to achieve social and community goals. They are the model of what banking should look like, not for-profit banking. Of course, in my world, we would scale up the model of the credit union to a full-scale publicly and democratically run banking system and remove the for-profit banking system, which in my opinion has failed us. While I doubt the Minister of State would necessarily endorse that socialist aspiration for a fundamentally different type of banking model, the least the Government could do is show the sort of urgency it has shown for the for-profit banking system in terms of supporting the credit union movement.

It seems we have had this debate repeatedly for years. Year after year, they have their briefings and ask us to put forward these asks Deputy Harkin has put forward in the Bill to Government. It is always tea and sympathy and lip service but not much in terms of advancing the requests of the credit union movement, namely, understanding that credit unions are fundamentally different, that they have to be treated differently from the for-profit banking system, and that the failure to do so threatens their very viability; that they be allowed increase the level of services they make available to their members; and that we would have, as the Bill proposes, a credit union policy committee that would look after the interests of the credit union movement and ensure Central Bank regulations were not such that they would threaten the viability of credit unions but would fully understand the need to protect the ethos of the credit union movement.

As other Deputies have suggested, while I note the Irish League of Credit Unions welcomes the Minister of State's review and is glad that review is happening, moving from the review to advancing the requests the credit union movement is making needs to happen as a matter of urgency. It has been asking for a long time and the Minister should show the same urgency as was shown to the for-profit banking sector.

I heard the Minister of State, Deputy Fleming, say in terms of one of the asks in this Bill that it would be inappropriate for Ministers to set the reserve ratios for credit unions. As I understand it, the Bill is not saying the Minister should set them but rather the Central Bank would have to check in with the Minister in terms of the setting of those ratios, that there would be an opportunity for the credit union movement via the political system to question the imposition of certain regulations, in this case the regulations around ratios, on the credit union sector where the regulatory excess of the Central Bank in imposing on occasion more excessive regulations than it imposes on the rest of the banking sector is threatening and inappropriate for the credit union movement. That is what the movement is saying and the Minister of State's response is inadequate. It is not about saying politicians should set the minimum reserve requirements but that the Central Bank should check in with the political system and there should be an opportunity via the political system for the credit union movement to have its voice heard in these matters. Its voice has not been adequately heard and that is what it is asking for.

The importance of the credit union being a fundamentally different animal cannot be overstated. We need a particular type of regulation for the for-profit banking sector because it is out to make profits and, therefore, to put it bluntly, it cannot be trusted. The State needs to keep a close eye on it because its drive for profit leads it to do things which can drive, and have driven, us over a cliff and can have very damaging impacts on society, communities and economies. The difference with the credit unions is they do not have those objectives. That does not mean they do not need any regulation at all, but fundamentally they are about trying to contribute to the well-being of society. It is a fundamentally different thing they are trying to do and it is inappropriate to impose on them the same kind of regulatory regime as is imposed on the for-profit banking system, particularly where it is excessive and threatens credit unions' very viability and gives them less entitlements than the for-profit banking sector to provide services for their members.

I strongly appeal to the Minister of State to support and progress this Bill. If there are particular technical or specific issues in the Bill he wants to amend on the next Stage, nobody would object to having a serious debate about that. The credit union movement is a responsible movement. It is a socially and economically responsible movement. I am sure it is happy to engage with the Government but let us move the Bill on and ensure we protect and develop the sector and give it the support it deserves.

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