If Bill Hobbs gets his way, the bigger, slicker credit unions will be allowed to behave more like banks, free to muscle in wherever they spot an opportunity. And they will be policed differently, offering a much wider range of savings and loans products than their smaller counterparts.

The creation of a premier league would send seismic waves through a movement build on a strong egalitarian ethos of cooperation, volunteerism and fair play. But having drifted from their roots as the poor man's bank, credit unions must dump a lot of their ideological baggage if they are to remain relevant to their three million members, Hobbs insists.

A career banker, he is four months into his new job as chief executive of the breakaway Credit Union Development Association (Cuda), which split with the Irish League of Credit Unions in the rancour that followed the scrapping of a disastrous 35m computer system that never worked.

It is no surprise that most of Cuda members would qualify for automatic promotion to Hobbs' proposed premier league. They include some of the country's biggest operators such as Dundalk, Tullamore and Newbridge, as well as Blanchardstown and Dundrum credit unions in Dublin. Although only 16 credit unions have signed up to Cuda, they control close to 20% of the movement's assets.

Hobbs' straight-talking, fullon approach will be familiar to thousands of TV viewers who tuned in last summer to see his brother, Eddie, take on the government and assorted vested interests in his Rip Off Republic series. Bill shares most of the Hobbs family traits, right down to the accent born on the banks of the Lee.

He is also no stranger to big ideas, having masterminded Siptu's ill-fated dream of creating a third banking force by fusing ACC Bank with TSB during an eightyear career at ACC.

Now he wants the government to rip up credit union legislation and start again.

Top of his wish list is a relaxation of the rule that credit unions must have a "common bond" with their members, a rule that ties people to whatever credit union operates in their locality or workplace.

"It's time to revisit our core philosophy and revisit the whole proposition, " he says.

"If we relaxed the common bond constraint, the bettermanaged credit unions with the capacity to go out and attract new members would be allowed to grow. The common bond is a barrier to growth that's become embedded in the ideology of credit unions."

The big risk for these "super" credit unions is that they would lose touch with the grass roots, going the same way as building societies, which have become little more than carpetbagging opportunities for many of their members.

"Credit unions must absolutely keep the concept of local ownership and I'm not talking about creating a credit union where the common bond is all of Ireland, " Hobbs says. "But you can only sustain a credit union if it is profitable and it can only be profitable if the business model improves."

This thinking is anathema to many credit union diehards but the heresy does not end there: Hobbs wants the bigger credit unions to be freed from the shackles applied to their smaller counterparts, especially those that rely on the good will of part-time volunteers.

He believes the movement as a whole is being punished because of the questionable activities of some of its members. This has led to much tighter scrutiny by the new registrar for credit unions, Brendan Logue, especially over the management of surplus funds.

"It's incredibly unfair to penalise professionally-managed credit unions because of the maverick behaviour of some credit unions who don't understand their responsibilities in relation to their investments, " Hobbs says.

He believes the solution lies in having different tiers of policing. "The best-managed credit unions should have a freer hand than the others.

The movement is a very broad church with more than 400 individual credit unions, some of them very small. The era of one-size-fits-all regulation is over and should be brought to a close."

The biggest headache facing all credit unions, big and small, is that borrowers are taking their business elsewhere. Consumer credit in the economy has surged by 53% in the last three years but credit union lending increased only 14%.

The reasons are many, according to Hobbs. Some credit unions have an elderly membership more interested in saving than borrowing.

Young spenders want the instant credit offered by the banks rather than having to wait for a decision by a credit union lending committee.

Hobbs also acknowledges that, in order to prop up a dividend on savings at 2.5%2.75%, many credit unions are forced to squeeze borrowers with higher rates of interest.

And for once, he is stuck for a solution.

"I'm asking the questions about what needs to be done.

I'm not sure what the answers are yet."