Enda Kenny (Mayo, Fine Gael)

With no stimulus provided, the real problem is the lack of credit from banks to businesses. Mr. Sheehy from Allied Irish Banks informed the Joint Committee on Finance and the Public Service that when his bank receives the bonds from the National Asset Management Agency it will not translate them into credit for business. Since the deposit guarantee was introduced, the Minister for Finance, Deputy Brian Lenihan, has told us we are deeply embedded in the banking sector and he will see to it that the banks deliver credit to business. This is not happening. Day after day, Deputies, including those opposite, are receiving evidence that shopkeepers are unable to secure credit or overdraft facilities and in many cases are having cheque books withdrawn simply because they came close to their overdraft limit. This is not the way our country should be.

A credit assessment procedure is being introduced under which people will be told they may be entitled to obtain credit from a bank but there is no guarantee they will get it. The timescale for introducing the measure means many thousands of businesses which are hanging on by their fingernails will go to the wall. I know of umpteen cases of solvent businesses which have never owed one bob and whose applications will not even be sent into the local bank manager.

There is no leverage on the banks. Ten more shops will close down every day. The belated decision to reverse the VAT increase, a measure the Fine Gael Party campaigned for, is welcome but is too little, too late. The Government had an opportunity to implement the reduction before Christmas. I do not know whether Deputy Perry heard a woman from Sligo speaking on radio this morning about how she made a saving of €500 by travelling to Enniskillen to do her shopping. People are not travelling across the Border to buy drink but to purchase a range of other goods, from prescriptions and medicines to baby products.

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