Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees
Thursday, 30 June 2016
Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach
Estimates for Public Services 2016
Vote 7 - Office of the Minister of Finance (Revised)
Vote 8 - Office of the Comptroller and Auditor General (Revised)
Vote 9 - Office of the Revenue Commissioners (Revised)
Vote 10 - Office of the Appeal Commissioners (Revised)
9:00 am
Michael Noonan (Limerick City, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source
I thank all the members of the committee. We had a pretty good discussion this morning. Shortage of time is always an enemy of discussion, but I am not averse to coming back whenever the committee decides to discuss any of the issues.
The SME position is improving. The data in my speech comes from the surveys carried out by RED C, the polling organisation. A total of 1,500 SMEs were accessed, and that is the result.
The Strategic Banking Corporation of Ireland was asked to make additional funding available to SMEs. It has lent almost €172 million to 4,600 Irish SMEs at lower costs than would be received from the banks. It will publish its half-year review in July, so there will be more data in that input. We are constantly trying to ensure that there are alternatives to bank finance available to SMEs, preferably at lower interest rates than in the banking system, but that is not to say that one cannot find individual cases where there is a problem. The Revenue Commissioners states that it has communicated with the committee. I presume that is on foot of the case referred to by the Chairman, but I do not know the details of that. Could the committee contact the Revenue Commissioners again or copy the correspondence to the former chairman?
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