Ms Jean Carberry:

The reason we set up MFI was to lend to businesses that would not be able to get money from the banks sode factothese are high-risk businesses. They are mostly start ups. As they do not have a credit record, that means they cannot get bank financing. A lot of evidence shows that there is a huge benefit to giving businesses this help along the way and many start ups would fail were they not able to access bank financing. MFI prides itself on being a responsible lender. A big part of the model might be described as being a Montessori for businesses. They get to learn how to interact with financing, they get loans and pay them back and they build up a credit record so that they can then go into the banks with a credit record and can sink or swim on their own.

Returning to the social responsibility element, MFI does a lot of underwriting and does not lend to businesses that it thinks will fail. It does not want to take a bright young entrepreneur and saddle him or her with a bad credit record, so it takes that very seriously. However, by their nature, start ups fail. That is a good thing, in general, because if we encourage people to fail and start again, that means we will have a more vibrant economy.

I may have to come back on the total quantum of the losses. It is approximately 30%, so if it has loaned out €80 million, then it would be approximately €24 million over the years. Again, 50% of that is covered by the EaSI guarantee, so we get that back. We consider it an investment; it is an investment in a vibrant start-up community.