Joe O'Toole (Independent)

There is that other one that has been in the news a great deal lately which is also supposedly mutual. I make no comment on that.

It is a fact that one third of all credit unions lost money in the first quarter accounts which were published and sent to the regulator. One third of credit unions, many of them small in size, were losing between €100,000 and €1.2 million annually. That is a fact and it is time someone did something about it. There is an unprecedented combination of bad debt, liquidity problems, investment losses and falling deposits that could create a perfect storm for credit unions where they could collapse and be lost. Many of them are not run properly and will not be run properly until we have put in place the measures I have outlined.

The Davy bonds, the perpetual bonds, the treasury funds and the ISTC bonds have all lost huge amounts. At least one credit union has lost more than €10 million, with others losing millions in perpetual bonds. They have tried to get some of the money back but cannot get access to it. They went to the League of Credit Unions, which is supposed to provide liquidity in these situations, but it has refused so there are now credit unions lending money to each other. It is not illegal and is covered by legislation as long as the regulator approves, but there are things going on that we do not know about.

Until we deal with these issues, and do what I asked — ask the Government to provide liquidity while giving additional powers to the regulator — we are looking at trouble. I said two years ago that we were looking at problems. Were it not for the Government decision of 30 September we would have had huge problems. We are now looking at new problems but they can easily be dealt with through legislation.