Credit Review Bill 2024: Second Stage Seanad Éireann — 2026-01-21 ============================================================ Joe O'Reilly (FG), Labour Panel At the outset, I join in welcoming the Minister of State, Deputy Troy, to the House. From the conversations we have had, I know he is passionate about small businesses and their success. Farming is also critical in this context. We, too, will be supporting the Bill. The purpose or premise of the Bill is to put the Credit Review Office on a statutory footing and to change its legal standing. That is a necessary and recommended exercise and it was explained earlier. It is to give it proper statutory footing into the future and, hopefully, with that, adaptability and strength as it moves forward. It is an interesting point that the Credit Review Office can make non-binding recommendations. That is important in the sense that it can look at local trends and the state of small businesses and agriculture and see developments therein, such as in the context of international developments affecting agriculture or in the context of whatever restrictions might be coming in the future. It allows the office to make recommendations on potential lending policies and more flexibility in a given area to accommodate farmers or small businesses to adapt to given situations. If I understood Senator Casey, who has a particular knowledge of this sphere from life experience - I have a little myself but nothing on the scale that he has - correctly, the Government element must not be taken out of this either. It is not a stand-alone operation. The Minister and the Government would obviously take cognisance of trends and developments and interfacing and interacting with the financial institutions. The Credit Review Office will monitor the credit market and provide guidance notes, etc. Since its establishment in 2010, approximately 1,400 individual applications of appeal were made and in the region of 1,000 of these reached a final conclusion. That is a very good and important outcome. I know anecdotally from my own constituency work and office of a number of these that have gone through this process successfully, and that is good. The very existence of such a process may in itself have an effect on the banks and financial institutions. The realisation ensures they do due diligence. If they know their decisions could well be the subject of appeal, etc., they will have to do due diligence on them. They can make some arbitrary decisions. Even though, obviously, their policy is to lend money, they do not necessarily have to do so. I will come to the point about the removal in a minute. It is important that there be the threat of a supervisory body so that there is fear within financial institutions about every decision they make stacking up. I would like the Minister of State to be particularly cognisant of a matter. I have come across a lot of evidence through my own work and from just chatting to people of banks arbitrarily selling loans to bodies. I know the bodies they sell them to are subject to regulation in theory. I will not go into individual cases but I have seen evidence and could brief the Minister of State on exact files, with redacted names, involving people whose loans were sold on to other lending institutions. Very arbitrary practices have ensued in those institutions in an attempt to basically extract multiple moneys out of the product they bought at a very cheap price. I would ask the Minister of State to comment on the matter. This is a Second Stage speech, so there is a certain latitude in raising points and this is one I would like the Minister of State to take a look at. It is important to regulate. In theory, all financial institutions are subject to the same rules and regulations. The Minister of State has active constituency offices, so he does not need to be told this, but I will bring him examples with redacted names. It is a reality. I echo a point made by Senator Casey. I had it in my notes. When I was a youngster, and that is a little while ago, there was a very different atmosphere and lending environment, in that the local bank manager had an intimate relationship with the entire community. The bank manager knew the community and knew people who would starve themselves to pay back a loan. Even if the project failed, that money was safe for the institution. The bank manager also knew the ones who were more like chancers but might have a good business case. The bank manager knew----- --- Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted. Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/seanad/2026-01-21/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:31+00:00 Sitting date: 2026-01-21