Latest news with #HoracePlunkett
Irish Times
11 hours ago
- Business
- Irish Times
How can we stop corporate gombeen men running amok again? Credit unions could be the answer
One of the pioneers of co-operative societies in Ireland, Horace Plunkett (1854-1932), established his first co-operative creamery at Ballyhahill, Limerick , in 1891. He raised the hackles of 'gombeen men', the trader money lenders who thrived on the isolation of individuals in need of finance and charged them crippling interest rates. Plunkett's efforts, helped by others such as writer and artist George William Russell and the Jesuit Fr Tom Finlay, included the establishment of agricultural credit societies, sometimes called village or land banks, of which there were 268 by 1908. They were the forerunners of the modern credit unions . Plunkett's biographer Trevor West has suggested one of his aims in reorganising rural commerce was to restore 'a sense of dignity, a spirit of self-reliance, and an air of optimism'. Fifty years later, Nora Herlihy from Cork , a teacher in Dublin from 1936, devoted to underprivileged students and disturbed by the poverty surrounding them, established an exploratory group, the Credit Union Extensive Services, at her house in Phibsborough. She encouraged a group of neighbours to form Ireland's first credit union in Donore Avenue. John Hume in Derry in the 1960s also played a key role in the credit union movement, which he regarded as one of his most important jobs. By 1975, there were 453 credit unions in operation, including 93 in Northern Ireland , performing, in the words of Plunkett, 'the apparent miracle of giving solvency to a community composed almost entirely of insolvent individuals'. At the time of Herlihy's death in 1988 there were almost one million members in more than 500 branches; today, credit unions affiliated to the Irish League of Credit Unions (ILCU), under one of its slogans, 'For Living, Not Profit', have 3.6 million members throughout Ireland. READ MORE Credit unions worked in spite of initial official scepticism. The Irish banking commission in 1938 was dismissive of the idea the State could perform any useful function in relation to co-operative agricultural credit, while the much lauded blueprint Economic Development by TK Whitaker in 1958 asserted that 'history affords no support for the belief that co-operative credit societies can be successfully established'. With the Credit Union Act of 1966, however, came statutory recognition of the co-operative concept. This week, as Allied Irish Bank reverted to full private ownership, it was revealed mortgage lending by credit unions i ncreased by 34 per cent to €632 million in the three months to the end of March, compared with the same period last year. The total credit union loan book now stands at €6.08 billion, its highest since 2008. ILCU chief executive David Malone said the group was 'eagerly awaiting' changes to the Central Bank's lending rules, which could see credit unions treble their mortgage lending from the current cap of €1.9 billion on the back of a proposed new loan limit of 30 per cent of total credit union assets on house lending. Malone has made much of harnessing the 'collective might' of the credit unions: 'We get our funding from our members' savings. We don't have corporate shareholders, and we are not subject to quarterly results forecasts.' Some within the credit union movement will have reservations about such expansion, given the historic rootedness of the credit unions in the community, dealing with smaller scale financing. However, with the stranglehold of the pillar banks on mortgage lending, it is surely a positive to see member-owned financial institutions making inroads in this area. [ How AIB went from boom to bust and back again Opens in new window ] This week AIB stated it 'profoundly regrets that the institution had to be rescued by the State almost two decades ago and owes an immense debt of gratitude to Irish taxpayers for the support provided during that challenging time.' Indeed it does. AIB recorded a profit after tax of €2.35 billion last year; its new mortgage lending was up 14 per cent to €4.5 billion, reflecting a mortgage market share of 36 per cent, while total new lending increased by 17 per cent to €14.5 billion. Last year, AIB and Bank of Ireland had a combined mortgage market share of more than 75 per cent while credit unions held less than 1 per cent. Corporate gombeen men ran amok during the Celtic Tiger . The Irish banking management culture was reprehensible in relation to customer charges, interest rates, facilitation of tax evasion and calamitous risk taking. Patrick Honohan , governor of the Central Bank from 2009 to 2015, subsequently wrote Currency, Credit and Crisis: Central Banking in Ireland and Europe (2019) , highlighting an enduring culture of corporate entitlement, limited capacity 'to achieve decisive reforms of culture', deferential regulators, lenient responses to abuses, and a Central Bank that had been far too passive. Theologist and philosopher Gabriel Flynn summed up the consequences: with 'the banking sector dominating societal decisions or overriding other community considerations, the inevitable result is an infringement of human dignity'. It is to be hoped that a greater role for credit unions might lead to a diluting of such violations.
Irish Independent
06-06-2025
- Business
- Irish Independent
Fix it up: Historic Horace Plunkett home in Dublin's Foxrock is hungry for a big revamp
Depending on how you look at it, the house at 4 Kilteragh Pines in Westminister Road, Foxrock, D18 is either a three-storey house or a sort of huge, multi-level 'apartment'. Either which way, it is one-sixth (or thereabouts) of the historic home of Sir Horace Plunkett, the founder of the agricultural cooperative movement and a subject of every Irish school history book. Tell me more... Kilteragh Pines was attacked and burned during the War of Independence and rebuilt in 1923, when presumably it was refashioned in its current 'international modern' style and divided into six residences. Number 4 got the original grand entrance and comes with six bedrooms, four bathrooms, a hallway, drawing room, dining room, kitchen, pantry and study area, as well as a substantial roof terrace and courtyard. The bad news? These days, it's quite tired and run-down and by the looks of things has not been decorated since the 1980s or thereabouts. By the looks of the fuse box, this will definitely need a rewire and most likely, replumbing. It will need a kitchen fit-out and complete redecoration, and possibly a new heating system. Any other issues will be subject to a proper survey being carried out. There is an annual service charge of €2,200 per annum. And the good news? The service charge includes the maintenance of a substantial and very well-kept communal garden, entrance and driveway. The house itself is large, at not much short of 3,000 sq ft, and is BER exempt. There is a separate lock-up garage and it comes with its own private lawned garden in addition to the communal space. Its orientation and generous fenestration make it a bright prospect inside. How much to buy it? Offers in the region of €1.275m. And to fix it up? If you've got pockets deep enough to bid, you've more than likely got access to the minimum of €200,000 (and up to €500,000) more required to bring this historical pad into the 21st century. What will I end up with? A six-bedroom home in the affluent suburb of Foxrock with both private and communal gardens. You're also buying into some serious cultural capital too, not only with the architectural style, but also through the Plunkett history. This time machine also has connections to HG Wells and George Bernard Shaw, both of whom are said to have been visitors to Plunkett's home when he lived there. Who should I talk to? You can co-op Paul Aherne of DNG Stillorgan (01 283 2700) to show you around No4's very generous facilities.
