Mr. Adrian Cummins:

I thank the Chairman and the committee for listening to our concerns here today. We look forward to welcoming the committee and the people of Ireland back into our premises, pubs, restaurants and hotels, once public health safety allows us to do so.

The Chairman asked about apprenticeships. It is very important that a hospitality and tourism skills directorate be set up to co-ordinate all skills for our industry. This can be either a unit within SOLAS or it could be a reconstituted CERT, such as we had in the past, or some equivalent. We need one organisation to be in charge of tourism and hospitality training.

On the issue of insurance, we must drag every insurance company into the courts to get them to pay what they have to pay out on business interruption claims. This is totally unfair. The Central Bank is not doing what it should be doing on this matter. We have had numerous meetings with the Central Bank and we feel that it must explain why insurance companies are not paying out on business interruption claims. Businesses are having to go to court to get what is right for them.

Thousands of employees and businesses in our industry are tuning in to this committee today. They need hope, they need a roadmap, and they need to know they will have a job or a business to go back to some time this summer. This is the big message we want to get out of this committee today.