Pearse Doherty (Donegal South West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I move amendment No. 6:

In page 6, between lines 16 and 17, to insert the following:“(2) Following the passing of this Act the Minister shall direct the Central Bank to publish the SME debt restructuring targets for banks and the performance of the banks in reaching these targets on a quarterly basis.”.

This provides for the inclusion of an additional subsection which provides that the Minister shall direct the Central Bank to publish the SME debt restructuring targets for banks and the performance of the banks in reaching these targets on a quarterly basis. There are two issues involved here. First, the targets must encompass all of the institutions, not just the State institutions or the pillar banks. Second, there must be transparency regarding what are the targets and how banks are meeting those targets. That is particularly important given that we will now have a State guaranteed fund that could be lending to institutions that might not be reaching the targets laid down by the Central Bank.

It is important that there is transparency about this. As was mentioned earlier by my colleagues, the finance committee looked at how the banks are dealing with people in mortgage arrears. In my view, the finance committee should also examine that issue in respect of small and medium enterprises. A very esteemed economist has suggested that this is a serious issue that the Department and the Central Bank must address, and I know there has been some engagement by the Central Bank with the professor in that regard. However, there must be transparency about the system. Given that we are dealing with on-lending to institutions that may have targets laid down for them by the Central Bank and that may or may not be meeting those targets, it is important that some transparency is brought to this, that the debt restructuring targets are disclosed and published and that performance in meeting those targets is published on a quarterly basis.

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