Mr. Felix O'Regan:

I will add one point which may be helpful. The Deputy referred to ISME. We have had surveys from the Small Firms Association in the past, Chambers Ireland has done some work, and we have done our own work. In their wisdom, the two key Departments - the Department of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation and the Department of Finance - brought all of the stakeholders, including the bodies represented, around the table about 18 months ago and said that we had to get to the bottom of this to obtain a real picture of what was happening in lending and that the Government would commission a piece of work in this regard, and that is how we got the Mazars study. All of the stakeholders agreed that this would be the definitive piece of research that informed policy and practice as we moved forward. ISME was at that table, as were the SFA and ourselves. That is the reason we consistently point to the Mazars study, warts and all - in which the warts, from our point of view, are deficiencies. We must all subscribe to one definitive piece of work. The figures produced by Mazars are nowhere near the sort of figures ISME continues to produce. I believe I am correct in saying that Mr. Trethowan and his colleagues in the Credit Review Office have also had issues with the ISME research. We are all trying to subscribe to and support the same definitive piece of work.

To return to a point Deputy Calleary raised regarding discouraged borrowers, one result from the research that was particularly worrying was that 45% of businesses said their opinions about whether banks were lending were formed on the basis of media reports or statements from what they heard outside, rather than their own experience. Obviously there are businesses that base their opinions on their experiences, but nearly half of the respondents said their views were driven by media reports. The challenge for us is to cut through that and try to get a more positive message across that what is involved is, as Mr. O'Farrell said, the formulation of a formal credit application and then going through the process.