Neale Richmond (Dublin Rathdown, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy for his question. However, I was a little bit confused and hope we might have a bit of clarification in our debate. There is a cap of €100,000, not €30,000 as is stated in the Deputy's question, on member savings, as outlined in Central Bank Regulation 35 of the Credit Union Act 1997 (Regulatory Requirements) Regulations 2016. As the Deputy is aware, the Central Bank makes all of its regulations independent of Government. Individual credit unions may take business decisions to limit the amount of savings they accept from their members to less than €100,000. This is a decision for the respective board of each independent credit union. It would not be appropriate for me to comment further on any such independent decisions made. Let us see what we can tease out in the debate, Deputy.

From January 2023 to date, the Minister, Deputy McGrath, my predecessor, the Minister of State, Deputy Carroll MacNeill and I have collectively engaged with over 104 credit unions. Just yesterday I engaged with all the credit unions in Donegal and Derry at a round table in Letterkenny. Separately, officials from the credit union policy unit have regular engagement with sector stakeholders. I can confirm that a €30,000 savings cap has not been raised as an issue at these meetings. There have been a small number of credit unions that have raised the €100,000 Central Bank regulatory limit. It is a very small number compared to the number we have engaged with.

I want to state that it is a priority for this Government to support the credit union sector as evidenced from the recently commenced Credit Union (Amendment) Act 2023. This Act enables credit unions, and will support their continued development towards providing the Irish consumer with a community based, composite financial services provider. We are keen to increase the number of people engaged in the credit union sector. We want to see more members of credit unions and credit unions lending more and allowing people to do more in their communities, be it home renovations or business loans. Particularly in the Deputy's part of the world, there is a very successful Cultivate scheme on which I engaged with a number of his local credit unions at a recent conference.

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