Pulling plug on SMEs ‘not in ECB’s interest’

Economist Jim Power said that he is loath to challenge Professor Morgan Kelly but he can’t see why the European Central Bank would take a ‘big bang’ approach to Irish SME debt.

Speaking at a pensions breakfast hosted by Ciaran Lynch Financial Services at the Clarion Hotel, Cork, Mr Power admitted the last time that his views had differed to Prof Kelly’s he had come out of it badly.

In video circulating in recent days of a lecture to students at UCD, Prof Kelly warned that if the ECB insists on the banks cleaning up outstanding loans of SMEs, it will result in the decimation of thousands of business and the jobs that go with them.