Minister Kelleher, in Limerick, to meet with Business Community to discuss access to Bank Credit

Mr Billy Kelleher, T.D., Minister for Trade and Commerce will hold a meeting today (6th July 2009) in Limerick with invited representatives of the local and regional business community to exchange views and to discuss issues on accessing bank credit.

This is the fifth of eight regional meetings Minister Kelleher has undertaken in the last number of days with the objective of examining the difficulties experienced by business in accessing credit. The Minister will visit Galway, Athlone and Dundalk over the coming week. Also in attendance will be representatives from State Agencies such as Enterprise Ireland and the IDA, banking sector representatives and Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment Officials.

“Access to bank credit for viable businesses is critical if we are to ensure that our enterprise sector survives the current economic difficulties and positions itself to benefit from an international upturn. The first hand knowledge gained will coincide with the work of the Credit Supply Clearing Group recently established by the Tánaiste, Mary Coughlan,” Minister Kelleher emphasised.

“These meetings provide a mechanism for genuine engagement between key stakeholders to provide for a sincere process to address problems identified. It is also important to emphasise that the banks’ recapitalisation package was about securing the long-term health of the economy, about enabling our banks to get back to the business of lending to viable projects and about saving jobs..”, the Minister concluded.

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