Martin Conway (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I, too, welcome the Minister of State to the House. This legislation is a culmination of a lot of work that was done to restructure, tidy up and ensure there was proper and appropriate governance of moneys within the credit union movement. Today, it is appropriate to salute and acknowledge, as other colleagues have done, the founding pioneering people who developed the credit union model in this country.

I have an extremely close relationship with the credit union movement because I was born and grew up upstairs over a shop that was literally next door to the credit union in Ennistymon. As a small boy I saw the queues for myself, and I saw the people who got opportunities in life, whether it was improving their home, being able to purchase a car, being able to put a television in their home, or even educating their children. That was because the credit union knew the community intimately. The people in it knew the integrity of the community intimately and they knew that, by and large, they would get their money back from the people they lent to. It was driven by volunteers who were caring, compassionate and dedicated to their community and the betterment of the people within their community.

Unfortunately, we do not have a tradition of community banking in this country. In Germany, community banking is probably the strongest financial institution that exists there and it serves the people of that country extremely well. Other countries may not have the best model of community banking, which in my view exists in Germany, but they have variations of it that serve them well. As far as I am concerned, our community bank is the credit union. It is incumbent on us, as legislators, to equip credit unions with the best possible processes and procedures to ensure they can continue to do the vital work they do of providing loans of small amounts to people who need them to improve their lives and ensure their families get the opportunities that we all want in life.

I do not believe that the role of credit unions is to bankroll property development, significant infrastructural buildings or even lend to major community projects such as swimming pools, sports facilities or anything like that. I believe that the future of credit unions should be what was its past, which has been to give a break to the people who need it. I have no doubt that we will continue to evolve in helping the credit unions to do this type of work. I do not mean we should hold the credit unions back in terms of modernising with ICT, ATMs and the suite of supports that will be found in a mainstream bank. Of course we should facilitate credit unions to provide those types of services.

In many ways, I would much prefer to see a relationship developing between the credit unions and An Post. I know that An Post has engaged over recent years with AIB. I would much prefer if that relationship were developed with the credit union movement. Far more synergies exist between the post office and the credit union. In many communities throughout the country, the postmaster is involved in the credit union and, in many cases, is one of the directors. Therefore, An Post has a role play. Maybe at some stage in the future we can develop a real community banking structure, driven by the credit union movement in collaboration with An Post, because in my view that is the future of the movement and the future of the banking wing of An Post.As always, the Aire Stáit is very welcome to the House.