Kieran O'Donnell (Limerick City, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the witnesses. I have a few questions from my brief reading of the submissions. Reference was made to labour activation measures but how would congress, IBEC and the SCSI envisage they would work in practice? The biggest single issue we face is unemployment. We did not discuss that at length but I am sure everyone would agree it is the biggest single issue. If people come off unemployment benefits that benefits them and the State. The witnesses might deal with that issue.

I wish to take up Mr. O'Brien's point, which was interesting. Access to credit is a major issue for the SME sector. Representatives of Allied Irish Bank and the Bank of Ireland appeared before the committee and we seemed to get different signals from them on this issue. Bank of Ireland said that the amount of €3.5 billion will all be for new lending and AIB said only €600 million of the €3.5 billion will be for new lending. There is a reluctance on the part of the banks to engage in calculated risk-based entrepreneurial lending. Mr. O'Brien might give us a flavour of the different business models in place elsewhere. I was interested in his point regarding the business expansion scheme. How does he envisage that could work in practice? I am centring both questions around employment. Rather than a headline mention of these measures, I would like to hear how the witnesses would in practical terms link labour activation measures to the provision of credit for SMEs and to comment on the types of funding models that could be used and on access to credit.