Paula Butterly (Louth, Fine Gael)
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The third issue is small businesses which are small builders. We have heard again and again about them not getting access to finance. The recommendation here is about consolidating building and economies of scale, which is fine in large urban centres, but in more regional areas, the small and medium-sized builder will be building 30 or 50 houses. Larger developers will not come to the regions to build that. They are interested in 500, 700 or 1,000 homes. How can we harness this? I believe the commercial banks really have not listened to those small and medium-sized builders about giving them the access to finance that they need. Has the pendulum swung the other way and have banks become too conservative in their approach to these businesses?