Dr. Conor O'Toole:

I am happy to talk about the access to credit issue. I refer to some of the themes mentioned by the Deputy, especially the historical banking structures in Ireland that were based on relationship banking. That was the way banking was done for many years. Banking is changing. It is becoming much more data driven. Decision making is becoming more centralised, as is credit access. There are a number of impacts because of that. It can be more challenging for firms that historically used relationship banking to transition to a new environment where they have to produce more data or financials. In that context, for many Irish firms, there is probably a skills gap such as in financial literacy. Providing supports in that context can help.

The key point behind this is that, historically, we had a reliance on the banking sector to provide credit to firms. We then had the financial crisis, which changed irreparably our banking system and caused an increase in credit constraints. We have had a pick-up in credit since then. The key issue is that there were no, or fewer, other options for companies. That is where some of the recommendations in the commission's report are important. Continuing to try and encourage equity investment through schemes, such as the employment and investment incentive scheme, EIIS, or the extension of entrepreneur relief, provide the building blocks to develop an equity-financing-type structure in Ireland that could help compliment the banking system as it changes and a new banking landscape develops.