County Kildare News

North Kildare Chamber  has today welcomed the Department of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation’s announcement that the Micro Finance Scheme, which promises to benefit 7,700 businesses and create 5,500 jobs over ten years, is to commence on Monday 1st October 2012.
 
Speaking this afternoon (27/09/2012), Eilis Quinlan North Kildare President said, “The Chamber welcomes this new initiative. It will help a great number of businesses to access funding that might not otherwise come their way given the nature of their business models. The Micro Finance Scheme should support a range of micro businesses with positive important secondary benefits arising from protecting existing jobs and creating new employment opportunities.”
 
“However, this is only one of two such initiatives promised by the Government as part of the Action Plan for Jobs. We look forward to the delivery of the Partial Loan Guarantee Scheme, first announced in late 2011, as soon as possible. North Kildare Chamber will continue to work with our members in Kildare to ensure that they are informed of and benefit from these initiatives.”
 
Funding is hugely needed and the banks reneged on their commitment necessitating this further government intervention. We now hope that this scheme will initially assist in retaining and ultimately increase employment in the ‘seed-bed’ of the economy”.
 
“The question now is when will the much announced Credit Guarantee Scheme for SMEs be launched, as that sector is also in dire need of credit. While the scheme will not be the ‘silver bullet’, it will certainly help some vulnerable but viable SMEs and allow them to survive, consolidate and in time, expand, with the positive result of increased employment.”
 
“The bailed-out banks must also ‘step up to the mark’ in the slowness of their refusal letters to businesses, as delays will hold up the processing of this Microfinance loan scheme for serving micro businesses”, Eilis Quinlan concluded