More than two companies a day are being wound up according to ICC Information, one of Ireland’s top credit raters.
The ICC study comes on the back of a survey published by ISME which today confirmed a deterioration in bank credit for Small and Medium Enterprises, in the three months to end of February. It shows that more than half of loan and overdraft requests have been refused, despite the banks assertions that they are ‘open for business’. The Association outlined that the Government now has no option but to immediately intervene through the NAMA process and force the banks to start opening up lending channels to small businesses. Any banks that fail to comply should automatically be refused any further state assistance with their recapitilisation programme according to ISME.
Padraic White, director of several small and medium enterprises, and former managing director with the IDA speaks frankly about what needs to be done to save businesses in Ireland.
Have a listen…
Banks may have been bailed out by the Irish tax payer to the tune of many billions. I’ve no doubt many billions more will be spent propping them up in future. Therefore, there’s a temptation to expect banks to ‘return the favour’, as it were, by supporting Irish businesses in need of credit during the present economic crisis. But banks have an obligation to the Irish taxpayer NOT to extend credit to businesses unlikely to survive what is – if we’re honest – a downward economic spiral that cannot be arrested. This country’s banks were not saved so they could lend money as irresponsibly as they did during the boom.
March 1, 2010 at 6:26 pmMuch of the global economic ‘recovery’ is welfare dependent – in other words, demand is being driven by the public sector, ultimately at the taxpayer’s expense. This was a necessary response to the credit crisis and it has prevented the recession from becomming a Depression. The logic is that the Public sector will support demand until the Private sector recovers confidence and resumes the job of consumption, creation and employment. But recent figures suggest that neither the private sector nor the consumer will be riding to the rescue any time soon, not in Britain, Europe or the US. This means that the export-led recovery the Irish are banking on will not materialise – the world, in fact, is at the very best headed for a decade of stagnation and, at worst, for a succession of debt-induced crises that will produce the Depression we thought we’d avoid. Irrespective of which scenario materialises, the prospect for Ireland is appalling. Unlike the politicians, the Banks here are not obliged to be witlessly optimistic in their outlook – realistically, they see tremendous difficulties ahead and it would be irresponsible of them to extend credit to businesses that are unlikely to survive those difficulties. To do so would only greatly exacerbate Ireland’s debt woes.
Plainly, the present crisis was caused by a huge private debt burden. Our response has added to that a huge PUBLIC debt burden – in other words, overall debt is an even bigger problem for the world economy than it was in the summer of 2007, rendering the system many times more vulnerable to shocks. And there are, necessarily, many shocks ahead of us.
Whether we want to take our medicine or not, it is being prepared for us. We are heading into what is bound to be a truly dreadful decade – there’s no avoiding it. To respond properly to that challenge we have to face it honestly. And as the legacy of the tribunals tells us, honesty is not something the Irish are particularly good at. Since bad banking practices were the catalyst for virtually all of Ireland’s present economic woes, it is imperative we insist on best practice from now on. Lending to businesses that are virtually dead men walking cannot be regarded as prudent banking practice.