Noel Ahern (Dublin North West, Fianna Fail)

I thank Senators for their comments. It is fair to say there is general agreement with the objectives of the Bill. Senators raised some points of concern and suggested provisions they wanted to be included. However, some concerns voiced in the Dáil, in this House and outside in recent times are not relevant to this legislation. Points made about lending practices and charges are covered by special purpose legislation, such as statutes governing consumer credit and financial regulation. This Bill is not the appropriate place to address those. Issues relating to one particular building society have been referred to the financial services ombudsman, others are for the Financial Regulator to adjudicate on.

This Bill is framework legislation. It is not earth-shattering but is made up predominantly of amendments to the 1989 Act and is enabling legislation for the existing building societies, providing them with additional options. Although some of the points raised are not of direct relevance I recognise that people may have legitimate grievances about building societies coming together.

The fundamental point, which I think people understand but gloss over, is that we are not taking any action to sell or demutualise any building society. We are providing options. In future there will be four options to a building society. It can remain as a mutual organisation. It can demutualise under the existing protective provisions which have been in place since 1989. It can opt out of those provisions and be taken over immediately or it can opt out and sell at some later stage. We are providing building societies with the options. It is the members who make the decisions. The conversion scheme is a slow process and I accept that the directors have a lot of influence.