Pádraig O'Sullivan (Cork North Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

As the Minister rightly said, there is probably a lag in the data as well insofar as there are 12 months, and interest rates and such are coming down. As the Minister rightly highlighted, businesses have proven to be resilient in that 82% of them said they had no change or had increased their turnover while 88% were either in profit or had broken even. "Resilience" is the right word to describe what businesses have endured and what they continue to demonstrate. The Minister also mentioned how average interest rates reported by SMEs rose from 5.13% in April to September of 2022, to over 7.2% in 2023. Could the Minister give any indication as to whether this trend has continued into 2024 and how he is going to mitigate the worst effects?

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