Mr. Paul Kelly:

To be honest, many restaurants have not engaged much with Fáilte Ireland. They would not have been on our system and they would not be used to these type of grant applications. That was the reason for many of the issues. We extended the deadline to allow more businesses apply and we have given as much support as possible. Any restaurateur with an alcohol licence, whether he or she was open or not, was able to apply as long as he or she had a commitment to reopen. We do not want to be putting taxpayers' money into businesses that are not going to reopen. As long as they were giving a commitment to reopen at some stage they would have been eligible to apply so there should not have been an issue in that regard.