Enda Kenny (Mayo, Fine Gael)

My point is that NAMA is a secretive organisation which was set up by the Taoiseach. The fees it pays to accountants and lawyers will make the tribunal fees look like chicken feed.

The Taoiseach did not answer my question on whether he accepts that his banking strategy has failed in so far as small businesses are concerned. This morning I listened to the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Innovation admit that the Fine Gael Party and others were correct to argue over the past 15 months that small businesses throughout the country are unable to get credit from banks. He is like a travelling troubadour who visits every bank to plead with them to give credit to small businesses in the name of God. This is unseemly at best.

The banks are either demanding personal guarantees from small businesses or making it so difficult that they will only lend on the basis of property. They are unwilling to consider loans on the basis of cashflow or volume of turnover. Will the Taoiseach adopt the practical and sensible solution suggested on numerous occasions by Deputy Bruton and set up a national recovery bank employing no more than 50 or 60 people to drive a loan guarantee scheme? This would shift the banks from their obstinate refusal to lend to small businesses under normal conditions to a situation where credit flows again. Similar initiatives are being implemented in other countries at a relatively small cost. I understand the guarantee on bank deposits has earned between €800 million and €900 million. I am aware this money goes into a fund in the Central Bank but it could be used to fund a loan guarantee scheme.

That should be done in the interest of protecting at least 100,000 jobs. It should be done in the interest of the thousands of small businesses that are struggling and listening to the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Innovation telling them only that if their loan application is turned down, he will tell them how to appeal it. That is no consolation or comfort to small businesses struggling to hold onto employees. Is the Taoiseach prepared to consider a loan guarantee scheme for small businesses throughout the country which would get credit flowing again, protect jobs and strengthen the Irish economy? A fundamental sector of the economy is being destroyed by a bank policy that is concerned only with protecting shareholders and building up reserves.

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