Mr. Neil McDonnell:

I would not like to venture a figure because, as the Deputy can imagine, the sorts of measures that may be required in a hairdresser are different from those in a restaurant or a hotel. There will be an additional fixed cost to opening that would not be there if we were not in a pandemic. If a business had shuttered for some other reason and was now reopening, it would not have all these other costs imposed on it. It is going to be significant. I prefer not to take the line of the Department of Business, Enterprise and Innovation, which is that there is only so much we can afford to spend.

Those revenue figures are in the annexe to our submission. The State, the Exchequer and the legislators are far too dependent on this sector to let these businesses go under for the sake of a few thousand euro.