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

This grouping inserts a new section 51A that allows for the referral of a member to another credit union, regardless of whether the referring credit union provides the service the member is seeking. This is absolutely core to the operation of the new Bill. What we are trying to do is increase the financial services provided to people all over this country, irrespective of where they live, be that a very rural or very urban area, and irrespective of whether their local credit union is large or small or whether it wants to provide current accounts and mortgages or not.

We want to preserve the ethos of the credit unions so that they can maintain the decisions they wish to maintain. A credit union is a community service, a community bank, a volunteer-run organisation and we do not want to change that. However, we have to balance that with the need for everybody on this island to be able to access financial services in a completely equal way. I would prefer to see a member whose credit union does not wish to provide current account or mortgage services being referred to another credit union rather than the credit union movement losing that member to a bank, potentially, and leaving that member in a position of only being able to compete within the retail banking framework. This is consistent with the retail banking review, the development of a community bank and the provision of equal access to financial services irrespective of where citizens in this State live. It is incredibly important. The operation of this provision is going to be up to the credit unions themselves but I want to see this provision utilised. I do not want to see individual members prejudiced by a decision of their credit union not to refer members and those members then potentially being lost to a bank.

This is about access to financial services across the country, and I want to see it working. In that context, I have asked the credit union advisory committee to look at the implementation of this provision of the Bill, as much as at any other of its provisions. In particular, I am concerned about mortgage lending and access to mortgages. I want to see a genuinely open community bank, and these changes are absolutely core to that.