Cormac Devlin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the opportunity to speak this evening with the new Government in place. It is good to hit the ground running. This is essential legislation, as my colleague has just said. We have all received many calls from businesses across the country which are in need of a roadmap. There are roadmaps for health and schools, as we discussed earlier, and now there is a roadmap for business. This is an ambitious plan and the Bill will hopefully pass within the week. I urge my colleagues in the House to support this suite of measures. It is essential that we see it passed through this House and the Upper House.

The Bill is ambitious and has a broad scope. It will be welcomed. The Strategic Banking Corporation of Ireland and the future growth loan scheme are essential tools in recovering Ireland's economic prospects. This legislation is significant because it will see the expansion of the future growth loan scheme which has proven to be extremely popular among small and medium enterprises. For example, €11 million in lending was approved from the loan fund at the end of March for almost 400 small businesses across the economy. That is the first step. As the Taoiseach said earlier, we are looking at a July stimulus which we hope will be in place by the end of July. It is essential that it is. We need to ensure that businesses have certainty. In a pandemic, as we know, many people feel uncertain about their future. Sadly, there are people who have lost their jobs. Businesses want to reopen but cannot do so. There are challenges there. There are many other minute issues, some of which date to before Covid and some have arisen because of Covid. This Bill will go a long way to assisting those businesses and giving them the certainty they require.

The future growth loan scheme which was launched in 2019 provides loans of up to €3 million with terms of up to ten years to SMEs, including farmers and fishers. There was a rapid uptake of this €300 million scheme by SMEs with a broad reach across all sectors and regions, including for local family businesses, which is essential. The Government recently announced €200 million in lending, which was made available through the future growth loan scheme. This is a proven scheme that has worked. This Bill will see its expansion and it is essential that that happens.

As I said earlier about the July stimulus package, we will hear about the many measures contained in it from the Minister and his colleagues. It is essential, however, that we see a green light for this Bill, which we will hopefully be discussing tomorrow and over the next few days. I welcome any further clarification the Minister might have but it is essential that we see it passed.

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