Arthur Morgan (Louth, Sinn Fein)

I thank Deputy Seán Sherlock in the Labour Party for sharing his time with me. I very much support this Fine Gael motion moved by Deputy John Perry. He has a way with understatement, given that one of the his bullet points in the motion states "- notes with concern that small businesses are still having difficulty accessing credit through financial institutions for a variety of reasons". By God that is true. There is less than a trickle coming through. The few tokenistic measures taken by Government are not doing anything to improve the position. The Deputy's next bullet point states "- recognises that the Government strategy of NAMA and bank recapitalisation has not produced a 'wall of cash' in credit for small business promised by the Minister for Finance". That is certainly true as well. Rather than a wall of cash in credit having been produced for the SMEs a wall of isolation has been built around them in terms of their ability to obtain funding. The Government has done nothing practical to ensure that they will be funded. Admittedly, it has put some money into the banks and ticked the box that it is to be lent to the SME sector but that has not happened.

I will spend a few minutes to go through the speech of the Minister, Deputy Batt O'Keeffe, which I found most interesting. He took a different attitude from Deputy Perry to the subject of this motion. He said: "I want to take this opportunity to again acknowledge the extraordinary work done by the Minister for Finance to address the banking problem." Why would he not commend the Minister for Finance on that, given that he has done nothing else only address the banking problem in the past two years? That is not only true of the Minister for Finance but the entire Government has been dug into addressing the banking system and has ignored the rest of the economy. It could care less about it and it has done nothing positive to bring a solution, initiative or stimulus to the SME sector - so much for commending the Minister for Finance on what he has done. The Minister has not produced a wall of cash in credit for the SMEs, rather he has built a wall of isolation around them.

The Minister, Deputy Batt O'Keeffe, also told us about the code of conduct for SMEs. Whatever about other regulated agencies, the banks have danced a merry jig around the Government since the evening in September 2008 which they walked into Government Buildings and wagged the finger at the Taoiseach and the Minister for Finance. They have danced a merry jig around the Government since. If the Minister of State says they have not done so and if he is aware of what they were at, he must have been compliant in what they were doing. He must be supporting their carry on in not revealing - if they did not - the accurate situation to the Government. Which is the position? The Minister of State cannot have it both ways. They either danced a merry jig around the Government or the Government was playing along with them. Either way, the comment of the Minister, Deputy Batt O'Keeffe, about this code of conduct being some kind of a lifesaver for SMEs is nothing short of ridiculous.

The Minister also said: "Firstly, the Credit Review Office is making a major contribution-----

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