Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 25 February 2014
205. Deputy Thomas P. Broughan asked the Minister for Finance if there has been an increase in the number of appeals lodged with the Credit Review Office since the threshold for appeals to be considered by the Office was recently increased. [9387/14]
View answerAs the Deputy is aware, in Budget 2014 I announced an increase in the limit for loan applications that can be reviewed by the Credit Review Office (CRO) from €500,000 to €3m. This increase will facilitate requests from a broader range of SMEs, as well as assisting those borrowers currently banked with non-trading banks and banks which are strategically exiting the Irish SME lending market, whose re-financing requests are larger than €500,000.
I am informed by the CRO that there has not yet been a significant increase in the number of appeals since the upper limit increased to €3m in October 2013. This may be due to seasonally - the level of applications in November and December tends to be lower than the rest of the year. However, I understand that there have been a number of appeals to the CRO in excess of €500,000 since I raised the limit.
The CRO is currently overturning 55% of the refusal decisions referred to them and I would encourage SMEs that have been refused credit by the banks to avail of the services of the Office.
