Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein)
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138. To ask the Minister for Finance to provide a breakdown by county of all Strategic Banking Corporation of Ireland funding drawn date to date. [14523/16]

Michael Noonan (Limerick City, Fine Gael)
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The Strategic Banking Corporation of Ireland (SBCI) began lending in March 2015. Its goal is to increase the provision of funding to SMEs at a lower cost and on more flexible terms than has been available in recent times in the Irish Market. The SBCI channels its funds through lending partners known as on-lenders. The SBCI currently has three bank and three non-bank on-lending partners.

The SBCI publishes results biannually. To the end of December 2015, The SBCI has lent just under €172 million to circa 4,600 SMEs. The average loan size was €37,000 and the loans were for a variety of purposes including investment, lease and hire purchase, working capital and refinancing. The SBCI will publish results for the first half of 2016 in July.

The SMEs who received SBCI loans were from a variety of business sectors. 85% of loans, by volume, were to SMEs based outside of Dublin.  (West 13%, Midlands 7%, Mid-West 14%, South West 19%, South East 11%, Mid-East 10%, Border Region 11%).

The following table contains a breakdown of SBCI lending, by value, for each region to end of December 2015: