Mr. John Trethowan:

The Credit Review Office has been in existence for just over two and a half years. We believe we have ensured that SMEs in Ireland have access to credit from the pillar banks, which was our mandate from the Minister when the office was established. I have sent a background briefing to the committee on the work of the office.

Over the past two and a half years, we have assisted approximately 200 businesses with credit appeals, and we have been able to help approximately 55% of those businesses to get access to credit. For the remainder, for which we agreed with the banks' decisions not to lend, we have tried to suggest alternatives to bank lending, such as the First Step Microenterprise Network, which has now become the microenterprise loan fund. In other cases we have suggested asset sales to help improve the balance sheets of the businesses. We have always tried our best to assist. The office has made observations on both the supply and the demand side. We have pointed out where banks can do better and where small businesses can do better. We have also tried to comment on the condition in which some small businesses have found themselves after such a long period of poor domestic demand.

In addition, I was given the task of monitoring the banks' loan sanctioning targets - €3.5 billion per year for each of the two banks. Each month the banks report their figures to me, and once they have been collated they are forwarded to the Department of Finance. We meet the banks formally on a quarterly basis to discuss progress on the targets and try to improve the quality of reporting.

That was a brief overview. I will be more than happy to answer any questions.