Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I will indeed. I thank the Deputy for his contribution. The first thing I would say is that I never pretend for a moment that any decision I made is perfect. All I can do, which I do my best to do, is weigh up the pros and cons of every decision. I make a decision motivated by the public good and then justify that decision to the Oireachtas and to our country. It is in that spirit I will quickly deal with the different points the Deputy made.

First, on his point on carbon taxing and his concerns, I assume, regarding the new carbon emissions reduction legislation that has been brought forward by the Government, he would be the first person to make the case for the beauty of the countryside in Kerry, its environment and its biodiversity. That legislation has been brought forward by the Government with the aim of being able to protect that or minimise the harm to it for the all the generations to come and even for this generation. That is what has motivated the legislation that has been brought forward. Decisions on carbon taxation will always be decisions that are made with respect to the finance Bill by the Oireachtas and the Minister for Finance. If the next Dáil is unhappy with the decision-making process that has been brought forward in the Bill from the Government, the democratically elected members of that Dáil can change the structure of that decision making if they so wish. The structure that has been brought forward by the Government to deal with the issue of carbon budgets is the subject of legislation, which in turn depends on the consent of the democratically elected members of our Oireachtas.

On the Deputy's point regarding VAT on insulation materials, I cannot give any commitment about that but I will certainly have a look at it and consider it in terms of decisions that will be made later in the year.

On the Deputy's final point on the hospitality sector and the difficulty employers face in potentially getting their staff back to reopen our hotels, restaurants and so on, I am aware of that challenge. It has been being raised with me directly in the context of employees who have moved from one part of our economy to another. In some cases, employees have left our country and now face the challenge of getting back into the country. We will have to consider those issues in terms of how we can reopen our economy in a sustainable and safe way. At the heart of the employment challenges those in the hospitality sector face is they being able to indicate credibly to those returning to work in hotels and restaurants that they will be working in hotels and restaurants that have every prospect of being able to stay open and not be closed again. That is what the Government is trying to do. We want to ensure that what we reopen we can keep open and that we can have public health policy in place that will allow businesses to stay sustainably open as opposed to having to close and our having to shut them as we have done during the last year. I am aware of the concerns the Deputy has raised. That is why we are hoping to safely and sustainably open new parts of our economy to create more certainty regarding continuity of employment within them. That in itself is difficult, which is why the decisions we are making at the moment are very finely balanced.