Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

We now have a working capital facility, which is a €300 million fund. We are putting the money aside to provide for the €300 million long-term loan, which will be loaned over terms from eight to ten years. First of all, borrowers must apply to the Strategic Banking Corporation of Ireland, SBCI, to see if they are eligible. They will receive an answer to that in a turnaround time of 24 hours. Those found eligible can apply for the loans through the pillar banks; AIB, Bank of Ireland or Ulster Bank. Those banks will make the assessments. They are allowed to loan up to €500,000 in unsecured funding. This is a huge amount of money, especially over a longer term. I imagine there will be fairly keen interest in this loan because it fills a gap in the market. Businesses are finding it difficult to access finance for terms longer than seven years. This will extend to eight or ten years, with a maximum loan of €3 million. That is a considerable amount of money. As I said, there is a 24-hour turnaround time for approval from the SBCI. Borrowers can then make their application to the banks, which will make the assessment. The application has to go thorough the normal lending assessment.