Tens of thousands of communities in developing countries are using the experience of Irish credit unions to lift themselves out of poverty, it was revealed today.

THE co-operative movement in Ireland is not dying out and is generating more than €15 billion in annual sales.

PABLO Picasso once famously proclaimed that all children are artists. The problem, he said, was how to remain an artist once they grew up.

CREDIT UNIONS loaned three quarters of a billion euro last year to borrowers who couldn’t get the money they needed from banks.