Vol. 458 No. 5
175 Mr. M. Kitt asked the Minister for Enterprise and Employment the plans, if any, he has to target projects in the £20,000 to £50,000 range under the access to finance scheme; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [16146/95]
The access to finance scheme offers subsidised loans from £20,000 to £500,000 to qualifying small business projects at the attractive fixed interest rate of 6.5 per cent for seven years.
It was important in designing the scheme to reduce the minimum loan size from the £40,000 level which applied under the small business expansion loan scheme in order to allow smaller borrowings to be eligible. However, I have no plans to target any specific quota of the total £208 million fund at the lower loan levels. Any such ring-fencing would, in my view, unduly impede the flexibility of the scheme.
