John Perry (Sligo-North Leitrim, Fine Gael)

In response to Deputy O'Dea's question as to who will take the decision, there will need to be due diligence of the business plan. It will be in collaboration with the Department, which will have a critical recommendation on this along with the bank and the business's accountant. That will be very much a win-win situation. That level of mentoring will assist with the viability and will reassure banks which in the past have refused money. There will be decisiveness. The code of banking will be looked at to give a timeframe.

In response to Deputy Tóibín's point, we have put a huge amount of money into the pillar banks. They are sufficiently capitalised and have the money to lend. With Mr. John Trethowan's report, there has been independent assessment of that. Bank of Ireland and AIB are each committed to lending €3 billion, which may be insufficient to meet the demand. The tragedy at the moment is that it is not just about giving money to a business, which is one element. It is about the level of support in the economy, the spend in the economy and the stacked-up costs of doing business. Keeping a company viable is not just about giving it a big cheque and hoping everything else will be rosy.

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