Michael Collins (Cork South West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank the gentlemen and ladies who are with us today. We all know that we are moving towards a recession and the document from IFAC states that this recession could last for two to three years whereas the previous recession lasted 11 years. I sincerely hope the council is right about that. Will our witnesses please explain why I am reading the situation differently? In the most recent recession, while businesses were struggling, most were still rolling on. I have talked to other public representatives and had meetings with business owners whose businesses have closed due to Covid-19. They told me that their businesses will not reopen because they need grant aid or lower interest rate loans immediately and are not getting it. That is the case in the West Cork constituency that I represent and throughout the country. I am talking about five or six businesses in towns, some of which employ up to 20 people. Do the witnesses think I am looking at this differently from them? It seems as if this will be a worse recession than the most recent one and will take far more than two to three years to recover from.