Mr. Nick Ashmore:

Yes, simply because the scheme was priced at an attractive level. It is important to note that the scheme was built off the back of a piece of exceptional aid from the Commission. That aid came not just with cash but with an opportunity to put in a further matching amount from the State. The scheme opened a window in the state aid rules that allowed the funding to be deployed in this way.

That accounted for approximately €21 million of the funding, the remainder of which was allocated to be able to support non-livestock farmers, that is, farmers in horticulture, tillage and so forth. We deployed loans in that sector under the de minimisrules. The state-aid window applied only for that point in time. The lack of such a window thereafter meant we could not, off our own bats, decide to do another scheme like this in the same way. De minimisis an open-ended arrangement but in this case it is available for a much smaller proportion of activity. We found that these exercises need to have a certain amount of scale if they are to work. While we do not how much more demand there would be if the scheme were still open, there would obviously be more demand.