Jennifer Carroll MacNeill (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The amendments in this group address the issue of changes to the nominations processes and to the processes for small payments on death. These are important changes to the Bill as originally published. Members will be very familiar with the nomination procedure. The two changes here are an increase in the nomination limit from €23,000 to €27,000 and a tightening of the process around that. We are now requiring that it be in line with the procedure for making a will. It has to be witnessed by two witnesses, neither of whom is a beneficiary. The purpose here is to provide additional protection to the person making the nomination but also to provide additional protection to the credit union itself in terms of the robustness of its processes. We thought it reasonable that it should be aligned with the procedures for making a will, that the process would be no more onerous than that and that it should not present too much difficulty to the operation of credit unions or their staff. We consulted widely with the credit union sector before making this appropriate and important change.