Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

I am listening carefully to the debate and the answers given by the Minister. I want to give a special shout-out for the taxi drivers.

I do not see why the scheme would not be made available to them. Estimates were done a couple of years ago that suggested a taxi driver, on average, carries fixed costs of approximately €11,000 a year. That varies and can be range anywhere between €4,000 and €11,000 or more for insurance, car maintenance, repayments, and fuel costs if taxis are on the road, although business is much diminished at the moment, but taxi drivers must carry these costs. Depending on the level of restriction, business is down between 70% and 80%. Taxi drivers do not have premises in a fixed location, although they are fixed in a county. A taxi driver is licensed to drive in Dublin or in a particular place so the business is geographically located but the car is the business premises. Taxi drivers tick all of the other boxes except the one for a premises and they are not getting the assistance that they need to cover their ongoing costs anywhere else. The only other grant that has been made available is a €1,000 restart grant when they return to work. That does not go anywhere near covering ongoing costs for the recent period and the debts they accumulated when they were either not working or there was no work, or covering on an ongoing basis the costs that they incur when they returned to work. Having talked to taxi drivers, such costs are in excess of what they are likely to earn on the road. They are probably losing money by being on the road at the moment. That is how badly hit the business is if taxi drivers have car repayments, fuel costs, maintenance costs and so on. I want to make a special plea to the Minister to include taxi drivers in this scheme because it would help some of them survive. In every other way taxi drivers tick the boxes that he is trying to tick and it would be unfair to exclude them.

There are other areas that I am probably not as familiar with. Some people in the music, entertainment and arts industry will benefit from the scheme insofar as they have premises but many self-employed people and small business people in the sector do not have premises but they have significant ongoing costs, particularly repayments for equipment or the storage of equipment. These people are unable to earn an income because big events and the venues or premises that are supported by the scheme,are closed and, therefore, these people are not working in those premises or at the big events that might otherwise take place. The Minister should support and include these people in the scheme as well.

On conditionality and so on, we do not want to in any way stand in the way of introducing measures that will keep people in a relationship with employment and maintain jobs during the pandemic so that those jobs are still there afterwards but there must be more oversight to make sure that the people who do not need this support, as they are making profits or have significant cash reserves and so on, are not benefiting from this scheme. The Minister is going to publish the names of the recipients on his Department's website. It might be useful, on an ongoing basis as a minimum, if he gave us some of the categories on a monthly or regular basis. Perhaps he might be able to outline some details of the 9,000 who have applied. What type of businesses are they? What do we know about those who are applying? What sectors are they from?

There needs to be oversight to check that these are not companies which do not really need this support. Even if the Minister does not agree with all the conditions that we are trying to introduce in our amendment, there should be some mechanism to deal with companies which are treating workers badly, are actively anti-union, are based offshore, are playing fast and loose with the tax system or are very profitable and which should not be benefiting from the payment.