Ms Fiona Kilcullen:

I will mention a few points on repayments for SMEs and moratoriums. Looking at the figures, and Ms Harvey can follow on from this, loans to the value of €900 million have been drawn so far. This includes agriculture primary producers. Many of the schemes contain features that allow for moratoriums. Under the credit guarantee scheme, for example, payment breaks of up to a year, including interest repayments and principal, can be given to people who have loans if they find themselves in difficulties. Further forbearance is allowed after that within the scheme. We are hearing so far that very few borrowers have availed of that. It is welcome that this capacity is available if needed.

On farmers and fishers, there has been a good level of uptake of the credit guarantee scheme in the primary agriculture sector, particularly for dairy. There are 407 loans in dairy, 189 in other farming and fisheries has also seen a good level of activity. For those we are here to discuss today, bringing the primary producers and farmers into that scheme would be extremely beneficial for those who are Brexit impacted because the Covid-19 credit guarantee scheme is particularly for Covid. The Brexit impact loan scheme would, therefore, be extremely beneficial to primary producers and farmers as they cannot avail of the current scheme for Brexit.