Ms Adrienne Murray:

Yes, we have looked into the reasons for that. In the Border counties, for instance, there has been a microenterprise fund in place for some years which allows applicants to borrow up to €25,000. In the west there is a similar type of fund, also with a funding limit of €25,000, which I understand is called the creative development fund. That is to say, there are already other means of accessing finance. In many cases, however, businesses are reluctant to borrow, their main concern being to pay down debt. We have been promoting ourselves as mainly providing working capital to microenterprises.

Standard bank lending rates for overdraft or working capital loans range from 7.5% up to 8.7%. We are not in competition with banks on the lending rate. We charge a fair rate for the type of finance we are providing to microenterprises. It is higher-risk lending and we are not overburdening the borrower with that. We will continue to monitor our interest rates on an ongoing basis. The margin we earn on the interest will go towards our ongoing operational costs and will enable us in the future to refresh the loan fund and lend to more enterprises.

In terms of the overall picture, our plan is quite ambitious. In terms of next year, we are hopeful of rolling out the two pilots to which I referred and reaching out to more business referrers in order to increase the number of applications. We will have an incremental build-up of marketing activity both at a national level and more locally. We have one person deployed on a full-time basis who is participating in enterprise related activities throughout the country.