‘Banks lending very little of €350m EIB funds set aside for SMEs’

VERY little of the much-heralded €350 million in funding set aside for small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) in Ireland by the European Investment Bank (EIB) has been lent by the banks to date, a Dáil Committee was told yesterday.

Representatives of Chambers Ireland – the body’s chief executive, Ian Talbot and Waterford Chamber chief, Michael Garland – told the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Enterprise, Trade and Employment that while it is very difficult to obtain statistics on how lending practices to SMEs have changed since the new funding initiative was announced, earlier this year, it is their “sense” that “not a lot of it is going out yet”.

“We don’t know the number of loans given under the EIB funding, but we haven’t got a sense that a lot is flooding out the door,” Mr Talbot added.