Pádraig Ó Céidigh (Independent) | Oireachtas source

Craic de shaghas éigin eile. Chonaic mé tuarascáil ón Economic and Social Research Institute. The ESRI published a report on small and medium size enterprises, SMEs, in the past couple of days. Short-term loans are decreasing in number, the number of credit rejections on short-term loans is increasing, lending conditions are tighter and interest rates are increasing. Large companies face an interest rate on new loans of 1.92%, which is 60 basis points higher than the European average. Large Irish companies are paying higher interest rates. I am passionate about SMEs and I know everybody here believes in business, particularly small and medium size enterprises. SMEs constitute the croí or heart of Ireland. The ESRI survey shows that Irish firms face an interest rate of 4.29% compared with a European average of 2.24%. This is captured by data by loans of less than €250,000. The interest rate being paid on loans by SMEs in Ireland is almost double the European rate. The euro interbank offered rate, EURIBOR, is negative. This means that the amount of money in loans given from one bank to another is negative. One bank is paying another bank to take the money. That means there is roughly 4% profit for the banks. I remind the House that during the days of the Celtic tiger, banks were making a margin of between 1% and 1.5%, not between 4% and 4.5%. I applaud the Government for its efforts to help SMEs, particularly with the Brexit loans, but we need to review how effective that is. The direction is good. It is positive and great effort is being made. The Strategic Banking Corporation of Ireland published its report yesterday agus is fiú é sin a léamh. An bhféadfadh an Ceannaire teaghmháil a dhéanamh leis an Aire faoi tabhairt faoin gceist sin?