David Stanton (Cork East, Fine Gael)

Last night I met the representative of a large exporting company in Munster who was extremely concerned at what he described as the drying up of export credit insurance. Export credit insurance works in the following way. If a company is exporting products abroad, while it may not be paid straight away, its payment is insured.

Export credit insurance, however, is drying up making it difficult for companies to export their products. The Irish Exporters Association is concerned that credit insurance underwriters have cancelled or substantially reduced the credit cover extended to exporters in Ireland. It has pointed out that this has put the €9 billion of exports covered by credit insurance on a rolling six-month basis, and a further €10 billion of home-based trading covered by credit insurance. It has described it as a crisis, affecting the supply of locally produced goods and services to exporting companies.

France, the UK, Belgium and Portugal have put in place state-backed export credit insurance schemes in recent weeks. The Irish Exporters Association and the IFA have come together to press the Government to bring forward a similar scheme. It is important this is done soon as exporting companies are under intense pressure.

I am pleased the Minister of State with responsibility for this area, Deputy McGuinness, is present in the Chamber. I look forward to his reply and hope he will inform the House the Government will move quickly on this matter. The survival of exporting companies is at stake. We know of the perilous state of the economy and how important it is to support companies to trade out of this situation. If the export credit insurance issue can be resolved, it will assist these companies. The representative of the large company I met last night told me that if this is not sorted soon, his company will be in serious trouble.

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