Mr. John Trethowan:

The limit is €500,000, so we are confined to dealing with companies in the micro- and small business sectors. People who are starting out in business tend to come to us. This is because banks were never the source of seed capital. When they come to us, we direct them to the microenterprise loan fund and also to the CEBs for mentoring. This is a risky time to be starting a business. There are always risks in the first two years in which any business is in operation. We seek to have those to whom I refer mentored and supported. Outside of that, we meet those whose businesses have had it tough in the context of both low turnover and low demand and have lost their profitability. Those businesses may perhaps be constrained from using the reserves they built up in the Celtic tiger years because they invested these in buy-to-let properties and things of that nature.