Brian Hayes (Dublin South West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Lots of things have happened. The legislation has only gone through a while ago. As I said in my speech, we have already had two very substantial consultations and we have now reached broad agreement about the tiered approach required. There is absolute support in Government to make this a reality. The proof is the very lengthy and good discussions that we have had on the matter at all Stages in both Houses. It takes time to get a product into the field. There is absolute commitment to it from the Minister for Finance and his departmental officials because they report to him on a quarterly basis on the progress that has been made following the enactment of the legislation and the commission itself to see if we can make this happen.

I am confident that over the course of the next few months that we will get a more sophisticated and exacting proposal from the credit union sector. It could deal with the regulatory issues that have been set out by the NTMA and the Central Bank and the potential risk issue which is one of the reasons the commission first reported. I do not see this issue as something that will be left in abeyance and not followed up and reported. I think that we are going to make progress but it will take a little bit more time before the issue will be brought to fruition.