Note for Limerick Task Force

SINCE DELL'S DECISION to close its Limerick manufacturing plant also affects the N74 corridor between Tipperary town and County Limerick, I expect to work with a focus group that offers a few ideas to the Irish government. One piece of advice I would give concerns nurturing small business by ensuring start-ups get letters of comfort that bank managers respect.

In my short foray with a start-up business in County Tipperary a few years ago, letters from Shannon Development kept our bank manager at bay. We got a larger current account overdraft authorised based on the instruments outlined by Shannon Development in a letter to AIB.

In the UK, "The government wants to cover loans of up to £1m to businesses for 10 years because it is concerned that the economy will grind to a halt without a renewed flow of funds to small businesses," writes Jill Treanor on the front page of The Guardian. Helping small businesses improve their cash position would be a highly effective way for the Irish government to make a smart move in an era when more small businesses will try to start up after their founders are let go by Dell.

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Jill Treanor, Mark Milner, and Larry Elliott -- "Government to underwrite 80% of small business loans" in The Guardian, 10 January 2009.
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