Mr. Gary Tobin:

From our perspective, SMEs are essential to the healthy functioning of the Irish economy. They employ most people in Ireland in the private sector. We want and need them to thrive.

Through the crisis some SMEs probably did have a very bad experience with some of their banks and that probably has discouraged them from going back to those banks to get further credit. Perhaps that is one of the reasons they use their own cashflow. Through initiatives such as the Strategic Banking Corporation of Ireland and the schemes such as the Brexit loan scheme, the new long-term loan fund, we are trying to encourage the availability of medium-term and long-term loans to SMEs because we absolutely agree that Ireland needs those SMEs to be successful.