Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 3 December 2015
98. Deputy Michael McGrath asked the Minister for Finance the status of the amount of debt owed by small and medium-sized enterprises, SMEs; the amount that is in arrears and classified as non-performing; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [43396/15]
Amharc ar fhreagraI am informed by the Central Bank that they do not publish statistics on SME debt as part of any of their statistical series.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 Central Bank does publish the level of outstanding debt, through the statistical release "Trends in Business Credit and Deposits: Q2 2015", which indicates that total loans by resident credit institutions to Irish resident SMEs was €50.6 billion at end-June 2015. This publication is available on the Central Bank website at: http://www.centralbank.ie/polstats/stats/cmab/pages/businesscredit.aspx.
The Deputy may be interested in the Central Bank publication "SME Market Report 2015 H1", 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%202015H1.pdf.
