Vol. 456 No. 6
44 Mr. Molloy asked the Minister for Enterprise and Employment the reason the subsidised loan scheme is being administered by a commercial bank and not by any of the State-owned banks; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [14443/95]
I wish to advise the Deputy that the access to finance scheme which, I presume, is the "subsidised loan scheme" to which he refers is, in fact, administered by four commercial banks who were successful in an open tender process initiated by way of press advertisements placed in the national daily newspapers on 5 May 1995. A key element in the final selection process was the amount of "own resource" funding which the bidding banks were prepared to contribute towards the loan subsidy. Only one State bank expressed initial interest in participating in the scheme but declined in the subsequent process to pursue its bid.
