Seán Fleming (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Since the Government came to office we have had detailed consultation with all the representative bodies in the credit union, several rounds of consultation culminating in a recent meeting I chaired with all the representative bodies. There is agreement across that entire group on 15 changes that will help the credit unions. We are starting to draft the legislation for those. There is much work in that and it is important.

The capital requirement is very important. There is a requirement for 10%. As I said, I was at the AGM of the credit unions. The unions themselves voluntarily have reserves at 16% nationally, so they can reduce the reserves they are talking about from 16% to 10% without any impact from the Central Bank. They are saying the 10% is a problem but very few credit unions are down at the 10%. Most of them are over 12%. If one got below 12% the Central Bank would look but there would not be two out of the whole 200 in that category. All the other credit unions in Ireland have reserves way in excess of what the Central Bank requires them to have and they are doing that themselves. The way to deal with it is to lend more money.

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