Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Tuesday, 11 February 2014

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation

Access to Finance for SMEs: Discussion

2:40 pm

Photo of Damien EnglishDamien English (Meath West, Fine Gael)
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I thank the witnesses for appearing before the committee. For us, they are kicking off the debate. During the next month or two, as I said at the start of the meeting, we hope to look at the whole area of access to finance and alternative methods. Many of the members have met the witnesses briefly in the past few weeks and have been impressed. There is much positivity towards their model which is commonsense. Certainly the committee would be interested in developing the model further with the witnesses. During our discussions in the next month or two, which will end with a report to various Ministers, we might link back to them. Today's meeting was very useful to kick-start the process. Certainly we will do all we can to flag it. In our report we will address the concerns raised by the witnesses and what they need. As I understand it, they have engaged in the Action Plan for Jobs and I hope that works for them. We will certainly add our own reports and link back to the witnesses.

On behalf of members of the committee I thank the witnesses and appreciate their coming in and taking the time to speak to us. I wish the witnesses the best of luck. Being a dating agency, I hope it has a good week.