Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)

The Tánaiste's engagement with the banks is wholly ineffectual. The bottom line is that companies are not getting access to credit and small businesses throughout the country are complaining. We have all been given examples on a weekly basis of tightening credit, of cash flow being cut off, of a very rigid and inflexible approach being taken towards people who want to protect jobs or who want to create new jobs. The banks are looking after themselves and no one else.

The Tánaiste talks about engagement and regional meetings, yet we have had regional meetings for two to three years now and we have had all this debate. People do not want any more discussion nor do they want any more timid engagement. They want action. They want the funding that is being put into the banks by the State and the taxpayers and the massive amounts of money that has been provided by the European Central Bank to be filtered down into the real economy, onto the high street and the factory floor but this is not happening.

The Taoiseach acknowledged two days ago that many companies will not go through the Credit Review Office for fear of retribution, for fear that they will be punished by the banks if they dare complain that they are not getting fair treatment or fair access. We cannot wait for months, we cannot have another series of regional meetings where people talk politely in halls or in meeting rooms about how nice it would be to have access to credit. This is choking the economy and it is choking the sector that creates most jobs, up to 700,000 and 800,000 at the peak of the boom. It is the sector that will have to be the engine for growth and job creation in the future.

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