Matt Shanahan (Waterford, Independent) | Oireachtas source

The retail banking sector is very important but what most people are now concerned about is access to finance and access to credit, especially if they are in the construction and manufacturing sectors and, in particular, the agricultural sector at present. There are major headwinds in those areas in terms of where people can go to access finance. That is a big problem. I accept that Revolut is in the market here for retail services, but is there anything the Department can do to put pressure on the system or to bring in legislation to allow people to access funding from eurozone banking? At the end of the day, we are members of the EU and yet we are excluded from any accessing of European banks. It is very difficult, unless you are a large-scale conglomerate, to try to access funding for large-scale project work. Those that can are well able to do it but smaller manufacturers, and the farming sector in particular, now have very limited options to access funding.

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