Mr. Seán Murphy:

There is and there is a definite mismatch between that money on deposit and getting it into the market. There might be better ways of doing it rather than a credit union doing it directly like through a fund. The BES, business expansion scheme, was successful and Butlers Chocolates, for example, grew on the back of that. That might be a better way of going about releasing this money rather than getting a predominantly volunteer-run and community-driven credit union involved in making credit decisions on businesses.

That is my personal view but Chambers Ireland has not consulted on this as a network. There are chambers and credit unions of scale that may well have the human capital and capacity to get involved in lending. However, it would want to be extremely well-targeted and regulated. The most recent report from the credit union regulator has stated there are challenges for them in professionalising their outputs in that area.