Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Thursday, 5 June 2014

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation

Access to Finance for SMEs: Discussion (Resumed)

11:10 am

Mr. Sean Murray:

There is no doubt that the quality of applications can sometimes leave much to be desired, but that is not to say they are all like that. There is also a high expectation. We have come from a culture of credit being available and easy to get to a culture where it is not so easy to get it, so a higher standard is required. The gap is sometimes between the expectation of people that they should get credit and the understanding that the fundamentals they are displaying might not enable them to get that credit. In some instances credit unions fund working capital, but in our experience in Naas it is more for equipment for the small and medium enterprises.