In a separate development, the Government is to make funding available to help improve management training skills for small and medium enterprises. Minister Batt O’Keeffe is to provide €1.4 million over the next 12 months for a nationwide pilot programme. If successful the project will be expanded.
Banks are claiming that eight out of ten loan applications are being granted to small businesses but Mark Fielding, the chief executive of ISME, is not having any of it. In an article in the Sunday Tribune, the characteristically outspoken Fielding said that some Government-assisted banks are lending again as a result of the state rescue package.
A new portal website, www.procurement.ie, is aiming to make it easier to find information on procurement opportunities in Ireland.
Ministers Brian Lenihan and Batt O’Keeffe are to meet executives of Allied Irish Bank this morning (Monday) to insist they lend more money to small businesses.
In a follow-up to its crusade against red tape launched last week, The Sunday Indo reports Enterprise minister Batt O’Keeffe is preparing a blitz against the excessive bureaucracy that is strangling small business.
Enterprise, trade and innovation minister Batt O’Keeffe is looking at introducing a scheme of loan guarantees for SMEs and will bring proposals to the government before the Dail recess in mid-July, The Sunday Tribune reports.
The government has launched a new scheme to help Irish SMEs take advantage of the growing civil security sector.
Forty-four per cent of Irish businesses believe that the current tax structure does not encourage start-ups, according to an Irish Taxation Institute (ITI) survey carried out by Red C Research in the Sunday Business Post.
AIB General Manager Dennis O’Callaghan said at the weekend that banks had no doubt that they needed to support small businesses.
Allied Irish Banks is to set up a new €500 million fund to increase the flow of credit to small businesses. Representatives of AIB, Bank of Ireland and Anglo Irish Bank met the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Innovation,