Niall Collins (Limerick County, Fianna Fail)
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103. To ask the Minister for Finance his views on a proposal by an organisation (details supplied). [14916/18]

Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael)
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This Government recognises that small businesses play a central role in the sustainable recovery of the Irish economy. To facilitate this, Government policy since 2011 has been focused on ensuring that all viable SMEs have access to an appropriate supply of credit facilities from a diverse range of bank and non-bank sources.

However, the Deputy will be aware that in my role as Minister for Finance I have no direct function in the relationship between the banks and their customers. I have no statutory function in relation to the banking decisions made by individual lending institutions at any particular time and these are taken by the board and management of the relevant institution. This includes decisions in relation to products and lending as determined by the banks.

Ireland does not currently have a bespoke national regulatory regime or framework for the regulation of crowdfunding, including peer-to-peer lending, unlike some other European member states, including the UK.

Given that crowdfunding is not currently a regulated activity in Ireland, there are no formal consumer protections available for those using crowdfunding platforms to provide funds. The Central Bank of Ireland has issued an information notice alerting consumers to this fact.

The crowdfunding market in Ireland is relatively small. There are currently only three crowdfunding platforms operating in the market, all of which provide peer-to-peer lending services. There are no equity crowdfunding platforms operating in Ireland currently. Currently, crowdfunding constitutes approximately 0.33% - 0.4% of the SME finance market; for comparison, this is 12% in the UK.

My Department conducted a six-week public consultation process on the regulation of crowdfunding that ended in June 2017. There was general support from the Irish crowdfunding industry and stakeholders for the regulation of crowdfunding in Ireland and it was felt that regulation would be beneficial to both industry and consumers. The main concern was that regulation might be overly burdensome or onerous and stifle or hinder the development of the industry.

The Deputy may be interested to know that the European Commission published a draft Regulation on a European regulatory regime for crowdfunding platforms earlier this month. This decision to consider regulating crowdfunding on a harmonised, European level has been prompted by the European Commission's ongoing monitoring of the crowdfunding market and industry. This proposed pan-European regulatory regime allows for the possibility of Irish crowdfunding platforms to passport their services to other European member states. My Department will be working with the Commission and other member states on this proposed Regulation in the coming months.