Holly Cairns (Cork South West, Social Democrats)
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380. To ask the Minister for Finance if he will outline his engagement with the credit union movement to fulfil the commitment in the programme for Government for credit unions to become a key provider of community banking. [2289/23]

Michael McGrath (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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We have a Minister of State with responsibility for credit unions, Minister Jennifer Carroll MacNeil, who will lead the Government's engagement with the credit union sector. Arising from the recent Government changes Minister Carroll MacNeil was appointed to her position on 21 December 2022 and has already had an engagement with Core Credit Union on 5 January 2023. Core Credit Union has 7 branches and represents a significant geographic area in Dublin including Sallynoggin, Shankill and Dun Laoghaire.

The Minister intends to continue the considerable level of engagement with the credit union sector that was undertaken by her predecessor Minister Sean Fleming. Officials at the Department are currently working on organising meetings with the Registry of Credit unions and the four main representative bodies. It is expected that these meetings will take place in the coming weeks. In addition, the Minister will speak at CUDA’s AGM on 28 January.

As noted above, the former Minister of State with responsibility for credit unions, Minister Fleming conducted a substantial level of engagement with the sector. In 2022 alone Minister Fleming attended 27 meetings and events with various credit union stakeholders including the representative bodies, the Credit Union Advisory Committee and individual credit unions. 

Separately, Department officials from the Credit Union Policy team have very regular engagement with sector stakeholders, including chairing a quarterly stakeholder roundtable. They also act as secretariat to the Credit Union Advisory Committee, which meets on a monthly basis.