Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The Minister does not really need to answer this. Why is the interest rate set at 4%? While I understand 4% is lower than retail banks rates for SMEs, what I hope that Irish businesses will do with this money is to figure out how to open up new European markets and how to compete and gain market share in France and Germany and across the EU 26 states. However, the subsidised rate of 4% is higher than SME commercial lending rates in Germany which are less than 4%. In France they are less than 3%. At a time of serious economic risk, which is Brexit and when we are trying to encourage our SMEs to diversify into mainland Europe, the subsidised lending rate is still going to be higher than the rate available to the firms they will be competing with in places such as Germany and France. Is that sensible?