Damien English (Meath West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

We move on to our discussion on crowdfunding with Mr. Peter O'Mahony, founder and CEO of LinkedFinance. I welcome Mr. O'Mahony and Mr. Marc Rafferty of LinkedFinance to discuss crowdfunding. I also welcome three business borrowers who have used LinkedFinance: Mr. Maurice McMonagle, HSD Healthcare, Dublin; Ms Lisa Redden and Mr. Olivier Vander Elst of Greenaer. Before we begin the presentations, in accordance with procedure I am required to read out the following note on privilege.
By virtue of section 17(2)(l) of the Defamation Act 2009, witnesses are protected by absolute privilege in respect of their evidence to the committee. However, if they are directed by the committee to cease giving evidence on a particular matter and they continue to do so, they are entitled thereafter only to qualified privilege in respect of their evidence. They are also directed that only evidence connected with the subject matter of these proceedings is to be given and are asked to respect the parliamentary practice to the effect that, where possible, they should not criticise nor make charges against any person or entity by name or in such a way as to make him, her or it identifiable. I remind members of the long-standing parliamentary practice to the effect that they should not comment on, criticise or make charges against a person outside the Houses or an official either by name or in such a way as to make him or her identifiable.
I hope that has not scared Mr. O'Mahony off. We are delighted to have him in today. Some of the members have had the chance to meet him over the last couple of months. This committee decided to spend some time examining access to finance for SMEs and exploring alternative sources. LinkedFinance is a very good example of an alternative source, as opposed to the mainstream banks. It is very worthwhile having this conversation and I thank the witnesses for coming here today. This committee plans to spend the next five or six weeks on this issue and to compile a report for the various Ministers flagging the areas we want changed and where we need to see more resources put in. Even the Department of Finance is discussing many alternative sources of finance that are needed apart from the main banks. It is worthwhile having this discussion and hopefully we will be able to link back with the witnesses throughout the report stages if we can.