Pa Daly (Kerry, Sinn Fein)
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90. To ask the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation the size of the MFI loan book; the number of current creditors it has based in County Kerry; and the number of these creditors that have contacted the organisation expressing an inability to meet payments in October 2020. [22273/20]

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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The Microfinance [MFI] Ireland Covid-19 Loan Scheme assists businesses with fewer than ten employees, which have been impacted negatively by Covid-19. It provides much-needed funding to help microenterprises meet payments for stock, working capital requirements and other overhead expenses through the provision of low-cost lending facilities, which include a six-month repayment free moratorium and the equivalent of one-year interest free (subject to terms and conditions), with rates as low as 4.5% for the remaining period of the loan.

I recently introduced the Microenterprise Loan Fund (Amendment) Bill to provide for the increased funding.

The Covid-19 Loan scheme has seen a very strong uptake in recent months, with €18.7 million sanctioned to 687 businesses up to 1st September 2020 from phase 1 of the scheme. This represents three years of normal lending volumes for MFI in a period of just over five months. Importantly, with 79% of MFI’s lending to businesses outside Dublin, MFI provides an essential support for businesses who are hoping to reboot their economic activity over the coming weeks and months in every county in Ireland. I was pleased to announce the opening of phase two of the Covid-19 Loan Scheme on the 31 August.

There are 57 live loans from Kerry. Of these, 28 are pre-COVID-19 loans and, of which 24 are on repayment holidays until October 2020. There are also 29 COVID-19 phase one loans. All of these loans are on repayment holidays until the October 2020 at the earliest, but some as far out as March 2021 (six months from date of drawdown).

In total, 53 of 57 MFI loans to businesses in Kerry are on repayment holidays. MFI has written to all customers due to commence repayments in October and will be following up with phone calls over the next few weeks, as part of the Credit Review process. None of the Kerry-based businesses with loans have so far indicated to MFI that they can or cannot commence repayments in October.