Clonmel Credit Union has welcomed Minister of State Jennifer Carroll MacNeill to mark 60 years of business.
They were celebrating today with an event in their recently renovated energy efficient Parnell Street offices with the Minister unveiling of a commemorative plaque.
From starting with 63 members Clonmel Credit Union is now lending €25 million annually to its 32,000 members.
Minister Carroll MacNeill says the local service is a perfect example of Community Banking.
It’s not a profit making model – it’s a model for the community. We can lend out our own members, our own community’s money to each other in a really positive constructive way. And you can certainly see that in Clonmel Credit Union and you can see how that’s going to get bigger and bigger.
“And what I’m so proud of always is to be able to talk about the Irish Credit Union Movement because nobody else has it like we have it. They keep trying to set up community banks, they keep talking about community banks and I’m able to be in the room and say ‘well guess what we have? We have this phenomenal community back system, Credit Union system.”
The Minister of State has refused to agree with Deputy Alan Kelly that recent talks of tax cuts was ‘electioneering’.
Controversy was created when Minister Jennifer Carroll MacNeill and indeed other Fine Gael colleagues put their names to an opinion piece of potential budget measures, which was then criticised by Fianna Fail.
The local Labour TD reacted stating that this was an attempt to show that there are ideological differences between both parties ahead of the election.
Speaking in Tipperary today Minister Carroll MacNeil disagreed saying she merely stated what she believed.
“I put my name to it because that’s what I believe. Fine Gael is a party that wants to put money back in peoples pockets. Fine Gael is a party that has always wanted to make further changes on tax so that people earning €40,000, €44,000, €50,000 aren’t hitting the top rate of tax as quickly as they have been. We have made a big change in the last Budget – up to €40,00 – we need to keep going. People are hitting the top rate of tax far too soon and I want to see that changed. And the reason that that’s important, like that’s not mad, we pay top rate of tax sooner than any other country across Europe.”
