Mr. Neil McDonnell:

I said earlier that the one Department that has been very proactive about this is the Department of Business, Enterprise and Innovation. We have a weekly liaison with it and there is a business forum and a retail forum which have functioned very well through conference calling throughout the pandemic. When it comes to other issues like the Return to Work Safely Protocol and the finance measures, what we are saying is that if the Government had spoken to us earlier we would have told it that these measures would not fly. The proof of the pudding is in the eating. The Covid-19 business supports tracker from the Department of Business, Enterprise and Innovation shows that €86 million has been spent. While that sounds like a lot of money, in comparison with what the State is extracting from the SME sector, it is a drop.