Matt Shanahan (Waterford, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I wish to cover five areas and ask the Minister respond if he can. The first area relates to the TBESS scheme. The last time the Minister was at this committee we outlined to him the difficulties regarding the scheme and that it seemed to favour larger SMEs which could appoint specialists to make the submissions for them. What learning have we taken from that because we may have to implement something again later this year?

My second question relates to access to finance in the SME space. Pillar bank finance now runs at approximately 8% plus, and linked finance runs at approximately 14% plus per annum. I raised it with the Minister for Finance, Deputy Michael McGrath, last night. Is there a possibility of running another Strategic Banking Corporation of Ireland, SBCI, bank loan scheme through the pillar banks to allow SMEs to access finance at competitive rates?

The third area I will cover is commercial insurance. The duty of care that was promised to be dealt with by 2 May is still in the Seanad. Is there any chance of that being pushed along?