Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

One can make hundreds of billion of euro available to the economy, but unless it is accessible to businesses, in practice, it will not find its way into the bloodstream of the economy. I refer to the ISME credit survey carried out in September. The figure for delays in making bank decisions on applications was at 21%. Some 18% of initial bank decisions were made within one week, which marked a deterioration. On average, the time taken to make an initial decision had increased to just over six weeks. Some 35% of respondents had had increases in bank charges imposed on them, while 21% had suffered increased interest rates. Reductions in overdrafts had been demanded of 21% of businesses, while some 69% stated the Government was having either a negative or no impact on SME lending. Some 40% knew about the microfinance scheme, down from 44% in the previous quarter. As I said, it is about accessibility as well as availability. We need to ensure credit gets into the bloodstream of society.

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