Louise O'Reilly (Dublin Fingal, Sinn Fein)
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21. To ask the Minister for Trade, Enterprise and Employment further to Parliamentary Question No. 30 of 30 September 2020, the number of Microfinance Ireland rescheduled 616 performing loans which were restructured in March and April 2020 had their payment break restructured or further extended beyond 15 October 2020. [28984/20]

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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The Microenterprise Loan Fund, operated by Microfinance Ireland assists businesses with fewer than ten employees. 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.

Microfinance Ireland provides vital support to microenterprises by filling the lending gap in the market by lending to business that cannot obtain loans from other commercial lenders. It lends to business that do not meet the conventional risk criteria applied by commercial lenders and applies interest rate charges for its lending which are not reflective of its credit risk.

Microfinance Ireland rescheduled 616 Performing Loans during March and April 2020. These loans were rescheduled to commence payments in October 2020. Repayments are collected monthly on the 15th of each month. The terms of the restructure were six months repayment free without any additional interest accruing, and the loan extended by six months.

Of these 616 loans, 114 loans as at 31 September have been further restructured beyond 15 October.