Maurice Quinlivan (Limerick City, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Increasing the knowledge and information would be welcome because there is concern and an element of clarity about what co-ops are. Historically, co-ops have been vital to key sectors of our economy. They have shown that they work, when considering agriculture and credit unions, for instance, among others. Internationally, co-ops have been successful across Europe in a wide range of sectors, including banking, insurance, retail and agriculture. As I said, it is important, not just with regard to co-ops but as we come to a time with full employment. We are down to 4% of people who are not in employment. There are key sectors we can look at, including people from the Traveller community, people with disabilities, and women who have left work to raise children who now want to come back in but do not have the skills or sense of security to come back. There are areas where we unfortunately still have unemployment blackspots. Co-ops can be really good to address those. In my constituency of Limerick, in the census previous to the most recent one and while we are waiting for the new statistics to come out in November, eight of the top ten blackspots were in Limerick city. We need some targeted interventions there. Co-ops would be one way to look at that.

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