Feargal Quinn (Independent) | Oireachtas source

The witnesses are welcome. Mr. Trethowan said that to date the Credit Review Office has received 281 applications for formal appeals on which 175 opinions have been issued and the process completed, and of those 55% have been upheld. What happened between the time somebody was refused credit, his or her going to the Credit Review Office, it going back to the bank, and the bank changing its mind?

I have had two experiences in recent years. I have been judging the Business & Finance Entrepreneur of the Year for the past three years, the most recent of which we finished yesterday. I was also involved in a television programme called "Retail Therapy" which involved meeting small businesses. I found that those businesses that were bright and with it, and I am thinking of the Entrepreneur of the Year, had no problem getting loans because they were professional in the manner in which they went about doing that. I have met other companies which had two views on that. One was that having read what is in the newspapers they knew they had no chance of getting a loan and therefore they did not look for one. The other was that they had put in an application that was poorly worded, badly advised and lacking in professionalism. I would not give them a loan on that basis. However, I found that if I gave them some advice or got somebody to give them advice the entire situation changes. Is that what has happened? I believe the bank has a strong case to make when it says people are coming in to them ill-prepared or that people are not coming in to them because they have read in the newspapers that they have no chance of getting money. Is that the experience of the Credit Review Office as well? It appears that if there has been a 55% change of attitude something has changed from the time the bank said "No" to the time it said "Yes.