Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Tuesday, 15 April 2014

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation

Access to Finance for SMEs: Bank of Ireland, Ulster Bank and AIB

2:10 pm

Mr. Liam McLoughlin:

I would like to come back to an earlier question on start-ups. We supported 16,000 start-ups in 2013. I do not have records of their success but we have a generous start-up package for new businesses and we are keen to support them. In addition to what the bank does in respect of banking arrangements and access to legal, accountancy and other advice that we offer to start-ups, we also have a number of development or start-up funds. There is €250 million available across a range of funds to support seed finance and start-up-development finance and we are keen to support and develop those. Those schemes are well used.