Peter Mathews (Dublin South, Fine Gael)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

I was going to propose in my contribution that given the effectiveness, at a microcosm level, of what has been done to date with a very limited mandate, and really one of listening, that what Mr. Trethowan is doing be brought to the attention of SMEs that have not had a happy credit application experience and want to take it further. The work he has done and the overturn rate suggests that at a 50% level of overturn, the banks in these cases are only 50% competent in the first instance. One could take that understanding. I would go a little further than the Chairman's suggestion and say that the Credit Review Office could be retitled a bank credit operations review and audit committee and that Mr. Trethowan would have unilateral authority to go in and examine new lending, restructuring and re-financing of the SME portfolios in the banks. The reason that is justified is that we own AIB and we and the Eurosystem fund Bank of Ireland. Together we guarantee their deposits. Effectively, we should own more than 50% but by a dint of an unhappy 31 July 2011 experience, we raided the pension reserve fund to prop it up at a ridiculous price. There we are but we still have a leverage over them. I suggest that the banks show a 50% competence in dealing with the SME sector. We know they are under a tsunami of distressed mortgages which indicates they need for more capital than the last PCAR indicated - I know that from recent discussions with CEOs of the banks. In that case Mr. Trethowan's commando small team could be expanded to give value for money by looking at the wheels and cogs within the bank in their operations for approving new lending, restructuring existing legacy loan portfolios and refinancing the customers who cannot continue with their credit arrangements with banks outside the system.

I am thinking out loud when I suggest the reason there is not much competition and the landscape here is a burned-out, gunged up, swampy financial battlefield that needs to be cleared by bulldozer.