Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees
Thursday, 18 November 2021
Public Accounts Committee
2020 Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 32 - Enterprise, Trade and Employment
Chapter 6 - Covid-19 Restart Grant Schemes
9:30 am
Jennifer Carroll MacNeill (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael)
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There was an extraordinary level of support provided to the banks in the context of the 80% guarantee. The risk they would have taken on with those loans was very small. Feedback from businesses in my area, largely export businesses to the Far East and so on, was that the banks were not interested in taking on any additional risk and, irrespective of the 80% backing, the 20% was not worth it to them. They were simply not interested.