Thomas Pringle (Donegal South West, Independent)

I welcome the opportunity to contribute to this debate. The Bill is being considered in the context of the crisis we have been enduring for the past four or five years. It attempts, in a small way, to address some of the deficits indigenous SMEs have had to encounter in recent years. I am led to believe over 60% of SMEs are refused funding by their banks when they approach them. The proportion is probably much higher because small businesses are deciding not to bother even applying for funding from their financial institutions because they believe they will not obtain any and that the banks are not open business.

The Bill is being considered in the context of our owning 98% of one of the pillar banks. In effect, we own it. The Government has made much play about the fact that there has been €5 billion extra made available for lending in the economy this year. If this is the case and if funding is being made available to the small and medium enterprises, one wonders why there is a need for a credit guarantee Bill to kick-start lending to small businesses. The €150 million guaranteed under the scheme is very small by comparison with the €5 billion that is supposed to have been loaned already through the pillar banks. Although we own 98% of one of the banks and have a large shareholding in another, we still cannot get the banks to lend to the domestic economy, which is carrying the brunt of the recession.

When one is told daily in the Chamber about job announcements, it is interesting to note they are all a result of foreign direct investment. The Government is pinning its hopes on foreign direct investment alone as a means of job creation. Last week, the Taoiseach, responding during Leaders' Questions, spoke about how people will in future work for four years for multinationals and then move on, probably, I believe, because the multinationals will move on from Ireland, thus making the employees redundant. The Taoiseach stated the nature of work is changing. I do not believe we should be setting up our economy to be a feeder for multinational companies and foreign direct investment and that people can only hope to get work in those sectors. We should be targeting the domestic economy in various ways, for example, the potential within aquaculture which can create thousands of jobs if the blockages in the system being maintained by Departments can be got through. That needs leadership. It needs somebody within the Department or a Minister to take hold of and drive that process. That is not happening. Such actions are what can make real differences in the economy.

There is also the potential for the creative sector. In the north west, as I outlined in the House previously, there is potential to create up to 18,000 jobs simply by being assisted to export and being taken in together into mentoring groups. That is not about guaranteeing credit to the banks. It is about the Government taking a lead and taking ownership of the issues, removing the blockages that exist for those small and medium sized enterprises, and allowing them to grow and develop themselves.

It is startling, when one looks at it, that the Western Development Commission, itself a statutory agency, can produce a report that shows the potential to do this exists. Even if only 50% of it were achieved, one would create more than 10,000 jobs in the domestic economy. It is unbelievable that not one Department looked at the report, contacted the commission and asked for the basis of it, or checked the report to see whether it was credible. There was nothing at all. Apart from assistance through one or two local authorities, which themselves are pinned for cash and unable to help in a real way, that is the only interest in it from officialdom and from the Government.

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