Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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851. To ask the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport the extent to which he remains in contact with the stakeholders in the hotel sector with a view to ensuring the availability of adequate working capital; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [8306/14]

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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I am in regular contact with hotel industry representatives and am well aware of the issues that concern the sector, indeed, I will be addressing the annual conference of the Irish Hotels Federation next week.

One of the key priorities of the Programme for Government is to ensure that an adequate pool of credit is available to fund SMEs, including the tourism industry. In this regard, I am advised by my colleague, the Minister for Finance, that the Government imposed targets for new or increased credit facilities for SMEs on AIB and Bank of Ireland of at least €3 billion in 2011, €3.5 billion in 2012 and €4 billion in 2013. Both banks have achieved their 2011 and 2012 targets and I am informed that both banks sanctioned circa €4bn in lending in 2013.

AIB and Bank of Ireland are now concentrating on growing their balance sheets and they recognise the need to increase business lending in the period up to 2016, including lending to the tourism sector.  Although the targets were a useful policy intervention, the focus will now shift to compiling detailed data on the funding of the activities of SMEs from both AIB and Bank of Ireland, the wider banking sector and increasingly the non-bank funding sector.

This will facilitate the SME State Bodies Group and the Credit Review Office in monitoring progress against agreed annual SME lending plans and ensuring that new lending to SMEs continues to increase as a percentage of total sanctioned lending.   The Minister for Finance will keep this area under close scrutiny to ensure that the SME sector can access an adequate flow of credit to support the recovery of the economy.