Catherine Martin (Dublin Rathdown, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

Again, we have the business continuity scheme, which complements the CRSS. It is something we can look at. The adaptation grant fund has been designed to mitigate the costs incurred by tourism-specific businesses. For Fáilte Ireland to identify tourism businesses in the application process, a set of eligibility criteria for each business category was developed. Under those criteria, only restaurants and cafés with a wine retailer's on-licence or special restaurant licence were eligible to apply. Many small independent cafés serving a mainly local population are not deemed, therefore, to be predominantly tourism businesses. That is the issue there. Operationally, it might be difficult to identify all businesses, such as cafés, that would be eligible. These businesses are eligible to apply for other Government-funded Covid-19 support schemes, including the restart grant plus.