Analysis: The Irish League of Credit Unions has effected the majority of its programme for change and is looking to a less troubled future, but many problems remain, write Carol Duffy and Colm Keena

The weekend's Irish League of Credit Unions (ILCU) meeting in Waterford was a dull affair when compared to the league's meetings of recent years, something for which the organisation must be grateful.

The new chief executive, Mr Liam O'Dwyer, has won the confidence of the bulk of the membership in his reasonably short tenure to date.

The chairman of the review committee, Mr Phil Flynn, has also endorsed what has been happening under Mr O'Dwyer's watch. In his address to the delegates - out of earshot of the media, like most of the weekend's proceedings - Mr Flynn drew a comparison between the pace of reform in the past year and the failures of the 1990s.

A reform programme drafted in the early 1990s was largely ignored by the league, with less than one-third of the recommendations made being implemented. By contrast, the past nine months have seen the majority of the recommendations in the reform programme, drafted under the chairmanship of Mr Flynn last year, already implemented.

Mr Flynn outlined his view that the implementation of structural changes and attitudinal changes can lead in time to cultural changes, implying that the change to the culture of the ILCU that he would like to see is still some way down the road.

The league excludes the media from its meetings, though why this is so is not at all clear. The league is a hugely successful organisation, with approximately 2.5 million members, and it is hard to think of another organisation whose proceedings would merit more the presence of journalists, who would report to the public.

The tensions that surfaced in recent years, centring around the failure of its €34 million ISIS project, have not gone away. A key source of the tension is the accommodation of credit unions that differ wildly in terms of size within a large and diverse movement that makes extensive use of volunteers. This has led to some credit unions disaffiliating from the movement while others are being threatened with expulsion for failing to use league insurance products.

Mr John Hume, the former SDLP leader who was honoured at the weekend meeting for his services to the movement in Ireland, has offered to meet privately with the directors of dissident credit unions.

"I believe a number of credit unions are planning to leave the league," he told delegates. "Are they off their heads." He asked that those thinking of leaving the league should reconsider. "The league is central to the credit union ethos and the strength of the league is enormous."

He said the credit unions planning to leave should remember the enormous contribution the league has made to the economic development of the island. "There is no more constructive or powerful organisation in the country than the credit union movement. It has done more good for more people than any other organisation."

A delegate who did not wish to be named, sounded a bitter note in his comment to The Irish Times. "They were helped when they were smaller, now they are just looking after themselves. They need to remember the ethos of the league."

The league president, Mr John O'Regan, moved to build bridges with the dissidents in his address to the meeting. He pointed out that the league was obliged to commence disaffiliation proceeding against credit unions that were not in compliance with the league's rules.

He then went on to appeal to the dissidents to enter into negotiations with the league. "I can assure those credit unions that we will not be found wanting in our willingness to work with them."

If the league can sort out its differences then in two years' time it might find that, invited or not, the media will have little interest in its meetings.

Such a development would be a sure mark that the reform process had succeeded.