Mary Coughlan (Donegal South West, Fianna Fail)

I am not having any row with the Minister for Finance, nor is there any row between both Departments on the issue. We have looked at several initiatives on how to stabilise some of our companies, such as the stabilisation fund and the subsidies scheme. We have also introduced other interventions to keep people in work. We have set up a credit supply group in my Department, in which we have had a greater working relationship between the representatives of business and banks.

One of the recommendations of the Mazars report was to investigate the possibility of a loan guarantee scheme. Other member states introduced such schemes and the impact of some of them on the SME sector has been negligible. We are taking a broader perspective on schemes that have worked and I am taking the UK scheme into consideration, as well as the schemes that were recently set up in Chile and the US.

I do not accept the claim that we are slow on this matter, given that risk analysis has to be undertaken to protect the taxpayer. Having said that, there is a common view held on all sides of the House that there continues to be difficulties in accessing credit, and this is one of the other initiatives that will be considered. I hope the analysis done by Forfás and Enterprise Ireland will soon be available to the Department.

See this speech in context