Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)

Does the Minister appreciate that businesses need to get their customers to pay them more promptly to generate more business? The problem is the cash cycle is frozen. The purpose of the Labour Party's proposal for an SME loan guarantee scheme is to get the cash cycle flowing again. The work done by Mr. John Trethowan is fine but Allied Irish Banks and Bank of Ireland will still want to conserve capital to get away from State ownership and dependence as quickly as possible. To achieve this, their credit lines to the SME sector will remain frozen, meaning overdraft and credit facilities will still be curtailed. I spoke to a person last week who was offered an overdraft-----

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