Colm Burke (Fine Gael)

I thank the Minister for giving us the time here today to debate this jobs initiative. It is very important that we provide hope. Listening to other speakers, there seems to be a negative view out there, so I should open by talking about events last weekend, when one of our international golfers, Rory McIlroy, won a major international event. I know of one bus company in Killarney that travels to the US every year, without any help from Fáilte Ireland or anyone else, and it organises groups to come to Ireland and play in some 12 or 14 different golf courses around Ireland. That bus company is undertaking this initiative every year without any State support and is bringing people into this country as a result. At a time when we have so many successful international golf players, we can now cash in on initiatives such as these.

I served as a board director on the Port of Cork company between 1997 and 2007. About 14 years ago, an employee at the company identified the potential of cruise liners. He went to Philadelphia every year to the major cruise liner conferences. Many people think that some of these trips are junkets, but three people from the company went out there every year, one of which was a board member and two of which were employees. In the past 14 years, the number of cruise ships coming into Cobh has increased every year, and there will be 50 cruise liners coming into the harbour this year. When we started that off, there was not much benefit to the Port of Cork company in terms of port fees but there was a major benefit to the local economy. UCC carried out a study and found that when 23 or 24 cruise liners were coming into Cobh, it was worth €27 million to the local economy. With over 50 such liners coming in, it must be worth well over €60 million to the local economy. It is that kind of initiative that we need to encourage when creating jobs.

These stories are just two positive notes to begin my contribution. On the negative side, and coming from someone who is self-employed for over 25 years as a solicitor and dealing with small businesses on a day to day basis, the lack of honesty in the banking sector at the moment is disgraceful. People are looking for finance or to increase their facilities, the banks look for information which is provided, and then three or four weeks later the banks come back looking for further information. I had a business that was to draw down a mortgage of €200,000. We got a loan sanction without any problem. We went to draw down the loan cheque, and for four months the bank kept looking for new information. It looked for every bank statement in every account of the business for the previous four years, yet it was still not happy. It wanted to know where every lodgement into that bank account came from. The amount of paperwork required to draw down one loan was disgraceful. The simple reason the bank could not provide that loan cheque was because it did not physically have the money. Banks need to be honest. If they do not have the finance available, they should stop stringing people along. When we eventually got that loan cheque, we could not proceed with the transaction because the company from which we were trying to buy had gone into receivership, and we had to start the whole process again with the receiver. We need clarification in this area.

Another issue, which may not affect a great number of people, is the situation where builders had planning permission with Part V compliance. A builder may be providing land, in order to comply with Part V, which is mortgaged to a different bank from that of the main development. They cannot comply with the Part V requirements because the second bank is saying the land is no longer available. As a result, transactions cannot be completed because the builders are unable to comply with Part V requirements. Local authorities are digging in their heels. The issue must be resolved because there is a major delay. These are two simple examples where we are dealing with the banking sector but the banking sector is not responding to the changes.

I know many people who are self-employed or working in small businesses and they are not taking an income in order to keep on the employees who served them well through the years. They are not getting the support they should be getting from financial institutions. They are certainly not getting the honesty they require. I ask the Minister of State to address this issue.