Mary White (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Fianna Fáil welcomes the Credit Guarantee (Amendment) Bill 2015, which vindicates its criticism that the credit guarantee scheme was not providing for sufficient lending to viable small and medium enterprises, SMEs, which under normal lending criteria are unable to obtain new or additional facilities from their banks. The scheme was supposed to facilitate this by providing banks with a Government-backed guarantee. The measures outlined in this Bill must result in improved lending under the scheme to SMEs. While I am confident that will happen, we will keep the pressure on to ensure it does.