Ciara Conway (Waterford, Labour)
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Question 150: To ask the Minister for Social Protection the reason social welfare payments cannot be automatically transferred to accounts in a Credit Union (details supplied); and if she will make a statement on the matter. [19259/11]

Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)
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The Department offers a range of payment options to customers including payment by electronic fund transfer to a bank, building society account or to certain credit unions that have been authorised by the banking and credit union regulators. The Department makes no distinction made between smaller and larger credit unions in facilitating electronic funds transfers.

In transmitting payments to independent credit union companies, different situations will pertain depending on the banking arrangements of the respective credit unions. The arrangements for money transmission span across a range whereby some credit unions are not reachable for electronic fund payments as the credit union do not have a national sort code to others which are reachable with straight through payments processing into customer accounts.

The credit union referred to in the Deputy's question is one of a number of credit unions that operates under the Bank of Ireland Credit Union Programme. Each of the credit unions participating in the Bank of Ireland Credit Union Programme has a unique sort code. However, the shareholders in these credit unions are not directly and individually addressable to receive funds on an automated basis. Therefore the accounts are not reachable to receive welfare payments transmitted by electronic fund transfers which can be lodged to individual accounts on an automated basis. For that reason funds are received by the credit union and in many cases have to be manually applied to customers' accounts. Under the programme, there is some capacity to facilitate the lodgement directly to the customers' credit union accounts. However, the programme does not enable direct transmission on all schemes which would be the optimal arrangement for customers, credit unions, their bankers and the Department.

The Department is willing to facilitate any customer to receive their welfare payments by electronic fund transfer. It offers a safe, efficient and economic form of money transmission. In this context, the Department has been discussing the credit union programme with Bank of Ireland and will be examining the progress possible to facilitate and expand the use of and range of electronic payments for welfare transfers payable into individual accounts. Every assistance will be given by the Department with the cooperation of the Bank of Ireland to develop the potential of this programme with a view to providing a high quality service to our customers.