Matt Shanahan (Waterford, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Acting Chairman and our guests for coming here today. I put my first question to the Secretary General on the loan supports outlined earlier by her. I see the Covid-19 loan support had an application or success rate of 63%, the continuity voucher, 55%, and the online training voucher, 40%. I would be disappointed if I was one of the businesses that was making an application. This seems to be quite a high bar to get over considering we are looking for State support here.

On the Covid-19 working capital scheme, did the Department at any time consider involving Revenue here, rather than putting this through the pillar banks, which we know are not lending and where there is a block in processing applications? Would it not have been easier to ask Revenue to drop money into businesses’ accounts as it has the best management system in the country? This could have been done at the 0% or the negative rate that Government is borrowing at, rather than making these loans available at 4.5%.