Lending in spotlight at committee meeting

Representatives of a wide range of lending institutions, business organisations and regulatory bodies will appear at tomorrow’s meeting of the Oireachtas Committee on Enterprise, Trade and Employment.

Officials from Bank of Ireland, AIB, the Financial Services Authority of Ireland, Irish Credit Bureau, Central Bank, Chambers Ireland, Enterprise Ireland, Irish Auctioneers and Valuers Association and the Irish Association of Pension Funds will attend the meeting.

Committee members will analyse current lending practices and assess how banks are doing business with Irish industry at the moment.

Committee chairman, Willie Penrose TD said: “We have heard much anecdotal evidence of Irish companies being unable to access finance to develop or keep their companies going. The purpose of tomorrow's meeting is to enable the committee to establish what exactly the position is regarding providing money for Irish enterprise.”

The meeting will be the committee’s final one before its summer recess and concludes an extremely active session.

Over the last seven months, the committee, along with its sub-committee, has met a total of 31 times and has examined an extensive range of issues and topics including:

A detailed examination of the retail trade in Ireland;

The strategy of Forfás up to 2011;

The broadband requirements needed to encourage greater working from home;

How best to facilitate the employment of people with disabilities;

Ways to generate employment using green energy;

The impact of cross-border shopping.