Ms Adrienne Murray:

I thank the Senator of his welcome comments. In terms of Business & Finance magazine and the awards schemes, and even those at local level, they are all welcome initiatives in promoting the tremendous work that is done. As Ms Geraldine Kelly said, the sole traders and the local entrepreneurs are the real winners and the champions of this. We need to promote them. The Senator will appreciate that it is early days for us, even in terms of people being up and running with their repayments before we could promote them either on our website or in provisional papers. We are conscious of using our marketing budget as effectively as possible and we have already started including some of our customers and using them to promote Microfinance Ireland at speaking engagements throughout the country. I am very much of the view that they are the success stories and the real champions of this.

In terms of having a leprechaun or a magic wand, we will continuously strive to talk to people. We all know people who have had the unfortunate experience of business failure or who have loss their jobs. Most people would view this organisation as a good idea and a welcome initiative. Many more people are hearing about us. In terms of the application process, I would mention a shortened application process or, as we outlined earlier, whether there is there a link that we missed in terms of the process with the banks, whereby they would refer the declined application directly at source to us. That would help us in our process. It would help us in our marketing if there was an automatic referral and customer consent in that respect at the outset. In fairness, the banks have willingly accepted that they will engage with us in exploring that opportunity and it will be led by the customer. As Mr. Pat Kilbane mentioned, there are many figures on people who have been declined credit. The Credit Review Office, which has been in existence for the past few years, has faced the same challenges in identifying customer behaviour or what is the reason that people do not pursue their application to an appeals process in its case. We need to educate those people, provide the channels and, as Deputy Lawlor said, get our message out to particular sectors, such as the youth sector, and make them aware of this initiative. There is not a magic wand or a leprechaun that can grant my wishes overnight but we are working very hard. We are a young organisation, a small business, and we are doing our utmost to explore every opportunity and challenge.

In terms of the tremendous work that has been done on our website, I acknowledge that Eircom, recognising this as a Government initiative, provided financial support to Microfinance Ireland for that. On promoting the scheme, we have PR company that has agreed to assist us on a pro bono basis. There is great goodwill towards this initiative and we are working very hard to find the right avenues and channels to promote it.