Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, RISE) | Oireachtas source

I thank Dr. Bambrick.

My final points are for Mr. McDonnell. His submission states SMEs now need "a bailout with recovery funds ... on favourable terms of at least €15 billion to reboot the recovery of society and our economy". I am not necessarily opposed to his suggestion but I would have to see the details of what such bailouts would look like. He also mentioned that two thirds of his members would have availed of the TWSS or EWSS, or have been in receipt of billions of euro of State funds to allow them to survive and continue. I wonder, however, whether there is not a certain irony in his coming here today with his two core messages, one being that there should be an acceleration of the cuts for workers who lost their jobs during the pandemic because the money being given to them is distorting the labour market and the other being that more money should go to businesses. Does the second one not also distort the market? I base this question on ISME's vision of rational agents and people not doing work because they get so much on the PUP, etc. I am not advocating this but if we cut the supports for businesses across the board, would it not incentivise them to be more efficient based on the logic Mr. McDonnell applies to PUP recipients?