Mr. Michael Lauhoff:

The Senator covered a number of issues. We did not see any material increase in decline rates over that period. Not all businesses are credit ready. We do not approve everything, for example if a business is pre-revenue or dealing with other challenges, but we certainly have not seen any material change in approval rates over that period. With regard to the cost of finance and whether it is a prohibitive factor, the ECB carries out a survey of SMEs and in its most recent survey the cost of credit, or interest rates being too high, was a reason for less than 5% of businesses not approaching banks for credit. The predominant reason for not approaching banks for credit was that businesses did not need that type of financing. While I appreciate the point about Ireland's interest rates relative to Europe's, for which there are core reasons, it does not appear from the surveys we have seen to be a reason to stop businesses from borrowing.