Richard Bruton (Dublin North Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I acknowledge this is a new area. It takes more work when one is starting from scratch. We are trying new methods. We have had a series of meetings with the banks to seek to ensure that microfinance and our loan guarantee are considered immediately by an applicant who has been refused a bank loan. We have removed the requirement for a paper refusal. We have worked with the banks to see if a better response rate could be achieved if the banks were to highlight the alternatives to customers. In tandem with Microfinance Ireland we are working to achieve a better take-up. The local enterprise office system will be part of this scheme as will better protocols with the banks. While Microfinance Ireland has changed its view of what will be the size of the potential market, it is still very ambitious for it.

Deputy Calleary makes a valid point about the importance of promotion. The Department is considering ways to promote the scheme more effectively. The target for the loan guarantee was not changed but we hope to make changes this year in the terms of the scheme. This will require primary legislation and the Oireachtas has the right to oversee any guarantee we offer. We will be returning to the Oireachtas looking to make changes in light of experience so that it can be more effective.

I continue to meet regularly with the Credit Review Office in order to understand its experience. There is no doubt that this type of scheme can play a role in finding solutions to viable companies which the banks for one reason or another will not fund. My Department and the Department for Finance and the other stakeholders in the finance group are looking at a set of initiatives to be in place for 2014.

In light of Deputy Collins's observations, the Credit Review Office is still hopelessly underutilised. It has a current limit of €3 million and only 3% of cases of refusal are being appealed in any shape or form. Only a subset of those cases come to the Credit Review Office yet it is turning over nearly 60% of the cases that come its way. There is a case for the Credit Review Office being more utilised by people who believe they are being treated unfairly.

On the positive side, the latest survey by RED C in replacement for Mazars, shows that the rate of refusal by banks is falling, which means there is an improvement in the rate of approvals. Approval is much more difficult in the non-pillar banks and this continues to be a problem. My staff in the Department and everyone else, including myself as Minister, are working hard to sweat this area, so to speak. We are hoping to get the most from the schemes and to improve them. It is a work in progress.