Mr. Fergal O'Brien:

Absolutely. The business community is concerned about the growth in the black economy that we have seen in recent times. We are quite conscious that, as a result of so many people losing their jobs in the construction sector, it has added to home improvement activity in the black economy. Our proposal is for the Government to fund an element of home improvement costs. We suggest up to a maximum of €3,000 in a €20,000 spend. We are suggesting also that this would be Revenue positive because, first, it would incentivise additional activity and, second, it would move activity from the informal economy into the formal one. The tax compliance requirements would mean that one would only have fully registered contractors. In addition, one would have the personal public service numbers of employees working on the contract. We would have, therefore, fully tax compliant activity. By making all the activity tax compliant, it would fund the cost of any grant or credit.

One of the benefits of waiting this long into our crisis to start looking at such proposals is that we can see what has happened elsewhere, particularly in the crisis response measures in Canada.