Mr. Seamus McCarthy:

I audit the accounts of SBCI, and therefore it can be called to appear before the committee. It is under the aegis of the Department of Finance. One of the significant developments in the past year is that the corporation has carried out a strategic review of its operations and it has published the results of that review, which are available. This year, 2020, is the first year going forward from that review, so the corporation is making some changes in its mode of operation and there has been some paying down of the borrowing, which I believe was borrowing from Germany, so some of that has been repaid. It is involved not just in the first line of activity, which is lending to SMEs who were having difficulty in accessing the market, but also in providing funding in the context of Brexit. That is being funded by the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine, and the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment. There has been quite a shift in the organisation and it is perhaps timely for the committee to invite it to attend a meeting. We have certainly dealt with this correspondent previously and we have followed up on matters that he has brought to our attention in the course of each audit.