I move:
That Dáil Éireann approves the following regulations in draft:—
Friendly Societies Regulations, 1987
a copy of which regulations in draft was laid before Dáil Éireann on 9th November, 1987.
I intend to make regulations, called the Friendly Societies Regulations, 1987, which will bring about a considerable improvement in the operation of friendly societies. A draft of these regulations has been laid before each House of the Oireachtas and in accordance with the legislation governing friendly societies each House must pass a resolution approving the draft before I can go ahead and make regulations.
The proposed regulations can, for convenience, be split into two parts. The first part deals with the position of specially authorised loan societies and the second part applies to all other friendly societies.
Specially authorised loan societies were originally established to take in monthly subscriptions and from these to provide loans for special family events such as weddings, holidays etc. They are small-scale operations and by law the maximum single deposit they can accept is £200 and the maximum loan they can make is £50. These limits were set in 1896 and are far too small in today's values.
The draft regulations originally proposed to raise these limits, so as to fix the maximum single deposit at £3,000 and the maximum loan at £1,500. In fact, in June last the Seanad considered the draft regulations and passed a motion approving the draft on the basis of these limits. However, since last June, I have further considered this question of the limits and as a result consider that the limit for a maximum single deposit should be raised to £5,000 and maximum loan to £2,500. These are intended merely to reflect realistic present day values and are not in any way intended to change the nature of the societies concerned from mutual help bodies or to permit them to carry on business in a commercial sense; that was never the purpose of these bodies and it is not intended now. The Seanad has approved the revised draft of the regulations.
In view of these increases the regulations will also require specially authorised loan societies to have supervisory committees. In this way there will be an extra degree of supervision for these societies now that they will have the power to handle much larger sums of money. I also intend to raise the monetary limits applying to all other friendly societies in regard to certain types of assurances under mutual self-help schemes and benefits payable from these. These limits were last set in 1966 and on reviewing them it was considered that more realistic limits should now be provided. It is proposed to increase the maximum benefit assurable to a member and to which a member is entitled to £10,000 and to set a similar limit on the amount a member may dispose of, on his death, by nomination or distributable when a member dies intestate. The maximum amount payable on the death of a child would be £1,000. Once again, these changes are not intended to permit any change in the mutual status of friendly societies.
The regulations will also provide additional safeguards for members by requiring proper accounting and auditing procedures in all friendly societies. As the amounts of money handled by friendly societies has grown over the years, provisions are included in the proposed regulations requiring each society to keep proper accounts, to retain the accounts of the six most recent years, to present accounts at each annual general meeting and to have the accounts audited each year by a properly qualified auditor.
I now ask the House to approve the draft regulations.