Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

When we move into better times, the private and public sectors will have to recover. Hopefully, this recovery will come about in a somewhat different fashion to the recovery following the last economic crash. It has been indicated to various committees in recent weeks that the banking sector will develop the means to assess the viability of small and medium enterprises, SMEs. I am not sure this is necessarily the best approach because it puts the assessment in the hands of the banks instead of the customer. It is necessary to take into account the views of those who have set up and maintained businesses and kept people in employment in both good times and bad in recent years. To what extent will the Central Bank be in a position to encourage the lenders to take account of the expertise in the SME sector, as opposed to what happened in the aftermath of the economic crash?