MEP Slams Noonan On Credit Union Mortgages

Minister for Finance Michael Noonan has been accused of damaging the Credit Union Movement in order to bolster the banks and ensure continued access to cheap money from credit unions.

This was stated by Independent MEP Marian Harkin when she responded to indications that the Minister is to deny credit unions the right to provide mortgages and initiate other measures designed to restrict their growth.

“Bolstering AIB to assist its public flotation and supporting the other profit focussed banks, which undermined the country’s economy means that they are to be further favoured by a Minister who disrespects the role of the not for profit, community owned, credit unions”, she said.

“This Minister, the Department of Finance and the Central Bank instead of valuing the stability shown by credit unions during the economic crisis, caused by the banks, have produced new measures to prevent them from developing their vital role as the people’s bank and this is both morally and financially unacceptable”, she said.

She called on the incoming Governor of the Central Bank Professor Philip Lane to initiate an immediate review of the Bank’s negative policy towards credit unions. “Credit unions are being increasingly restricted in providing services throughout community as the banks increasingly desert them”, Marian Harkin said.

Government sources in recent years had participated in a publicity campaign to undermine the Credit Union Movement but their outlandish, and proven false, information about credit unions had failed to undermine the confidence of people in them, the Independent MEP said.

“Minister Noonan and his government, if they have any real concern to meet the demand for housing, must not deny access to mortgages from credit unions which can have a major impact on resolving the housing crisis”, Independent MEP Marian Harkin concluded.

 

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