Yesterday in the Dáil during a debate on the operation of the credit supply clearing group, I asked Minister Bruton his views and the views of the government on other forms of financing that are available to small businesses such as Crowd Funding. Crowd Funding is a method of raising capital in small amounts from a large group of people using the Internet and social media. In the UK upwards of €90m has been lent out this way with only a 1% default rate, in Ireland €175,000 has already been lent to 5 businesses via Crowd Funding while there are 1,250 registered lenders in the country.

Click here for the useful video LinkedFinance.com have created to illustrate how Crowd Funding works.

Click here to view my contribution to the debate.