Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Tuesday, 13 November 2012

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation

Lending to Small Business: Discussion

2:30 pm

Mr. Pat Farrell:

To come back to the point on the slight reduction in the size of the debt outstanding, I refer to the point Mr. Trethowan made earlier. Businesses are paying down debt faster than they are borrowing. The fact that the overall book moves downwards slightly does not necessarily mean that less money is being lent but that people are paying down debt faster than they are borrowing.