Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The legislation is under preparation and I am confident that I will be in a position to publish it towards the end of this year and bring it before the House in the early part of next year.

Regarding the terms and conditions relating to the credit and how it would be made available to companies, it must and will be made available on commercial and market-equivalent terms. In other words, the way in which this funding will be provided must be consistent with the commercial terms upon which funding is provided elsewhere in the market. I have studied the operation of the Activate Capital fund, the success of which to date has shown that there is a need for credit in a way that our banks are not able to facilitate at present. As I bring the legislation before the House, I am confident we will be able to create an entity that will be able to do this. At this point, I am not in a position to be able to comment on what the rate of interest will be because much of that will depend on the quality of the individual applications made to HBFI once it is set up.

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