Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 5 February 2015
126. Deputy Michael McGrath asked the Minister for Finance the latest information he has available as to the amount of small and medium enterprise debt outstanding in the country; the amount which is in arrears; the amount classified as non-performing; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [5370/15]
View answerI am informed by the Central Bank that they do not publish statistics on SME debt as part of any of their statistical series. However, the Bank do publish the level of outstanding debt, through the statistical release "Trends in Business Credit and Deposits: Q3 2014", which indicates that total loans by Irish resident credit institutions to Irish resident SMEs was €59.4 billion at end-September 2014. This publication is available on the Central Bank website: http://www.centralbank.ie/polstats/stats/cmab/Documents/2014q3_ie_trends_in_business_credit_and_deposits.pdf.
The Deputy may be interested in the Central Bank publication "SME Market Report 2014 H2", which reports on SME default numbers (as per the Basel II definition of default). This publication is available on the Central Bank website: http://www.centralbank.ie/publications/Documents/SME%20Market%20Report%202014H2.pdf.
