Mr. John Murphy:

Nobody is being excluded. The same issue applies across many member states where a very large proportion of firms are quite small. That is not the case just in Ireland.

The Deputy referred to the youth guarantee. As I said earlier, the Department of Social Protection is the lead Department for this. It will have the job of co-ordinating the preparation of a youth guarantee set of proposals for adoption by Government by the end of this year, with a view to ensuring that we can put the measures in place and draw down the funding. The portion of the EU funding that comes through the European Social Fund requires matching funding on a 50:50 basis. Therefore, any measures under that will have to feature in the estimates process in the normal way and will have to be eligible for ESF funding in order to draw down that money.

The EIB funding to which the Deputy referred is essentially a loan facility, not grant aid. I do not have the detail of its precise terms. I do not think they have been worked out yet. We will certainly be anxious to ensure that they are as advantageous as possible.

Before he left, Senator Cullinane raised a question about the interest rate available under various loan facilities and whether they are advantageous or high. The problem with instruments such as the credit guarantee or the micro-finance loan fund is that by definition they are for firms that would not qualify for funding from banks and there is a risk premium associated with that. One cannot ignore that risk premium because if one were to seek to do so one would be giving illegal state aid so it must be given on a basis that meets those requirements.

Deputy Kyne asked whether there are recent examples of State aid. I am not sure what exactly he meant.