Liam Twomey (Wexford, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Before you answer that question, there is a theme coming through from the debate. Irish SMEs are small, family owned and not big corporations. As was pointed out, what is classified as an SME in Germany would be considered a large company in Ireland. How adaptable is this model? Are we stuck with the bank financing model because that is just the structure of our SMEs or is it possible that we can move to equity based financing? Is there a model for it or are we simply not at the races, to put it mildly?