Noel O'Flynn (Cork North Central, Fianna Fail)

No one is roasting me, but I know several business people who are finding it difficult. Banks are being aggressive towards businesses that have worked hard to employ people and provide manufacturing goods and services. They are placing people under pressure at a time when they should not. It is not the people's fault that there is a slow down in the economy and a fall off in business of 30% to 60%.

In Athlone recently, I made it clear to the Minister that we need banks to guarantee that, when assets are removed from their balance sheets and they have the ECB's money, money will flow to businesses and house owners and the haranguing and pressuring of decent people who are trying to run their businesses and keep people employed will stop. For any employer, there is nothing worse than needing to put someone on a three-day week or make employees redundant, particularly where a person might have served for 20 years or longer. This is distressing for any business person who values employees, and they lose skills and expertise. Unfortunately, for businesses to survive and to cut costs, difficult decisions must be made.

I send a clear message to the two major banks, AIB and Bank of Ireland, that they should stop what they are doing and try to help businesses and people to survive in these difficult times. I have great confidence in the country. We are an open market economy and I do not doubt that we will come out of the recession, do well again and prepare for the upturn over the next 12 months. That upturn will only come if working capital is available to businesses and confidence is restored in the economy so that people are not afraid to trade or buy goods and services and are not worried that their bank managers are waiting to take them into surgery and dissect them.

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