Fidelma Healy Eames (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

This is my first time attending this committee and I deliberately came because of Mr. Trethowan's presence. I had an experience last year with a company that exhausted itself trying to get a loan from the bank. I strongly recommended that it go to the Credit Review Office but it would not because it was so exhausted. This company had an offer of orders worth €7 million. It needed to borrow €500,000 to buy equipment to service those orders and to hire seven people. AIB was the bank involved, one of the pillar banks. I have put this on the record already. The bank refused once and when the company applied for a review the bank refused again. It then waived the authority so that I could intervene. After three or four months I got €350,000. This was despite my recommending that the company go to the Credit Review Office. It did not want to start the process again because it was so exhausted and time was of the essence. It is ridiculous that it should have taken that long but it was worth it for what we saved.

Mr. Trethowan is aware of the pressure on businesses which are refused funding and that they get exhausted. If he is able to overturn 55% of the decisions - I do not care if that amount is low - he has credibility and the banks are taking on his suggestions without his having a statutory remit in the area. Is he doing any work with the banks at the moment to make the experience easier in the first instance for the SME borrower? If not, would he see merit in doing this? Are the decisions that he upholds always for the original amount of the loan or sometimes for less? Does he deal with Ulster Bank?