Mr. Keith Rogers:

I thank the committee members. My message to Deputy Bruton is to give us a leg up. Covid-19 has been hugely difficult for the retail sector, for all the people who work in it and for the whole industry. What can we do? If we get into a support mode, the first thing we need is continued supports on the wage subsidy through all of this year and perhaps into next year until we realise what the post-Covid-19 scenario is like for us. The second thing is that we need to take our towns and cities seriously. We need every local authority to appoint a retail manager with a keen retail focus, to treat the town centres in the same way as we treat our shopping centres, where every shopping centre has a manager taking account of the retail mix, the day time and the night-time, to promote our towns and to incentivise business back in. We have a difficulty at the moment where Covid-19 has taken out a huge amount of retail and in every town, city and village, we are seeing incredible vacancy rates and empty sites. How can we be proactive about that? How can we incentivise retailers and businesses to expand their business? Can we encourage recruitment, like we did in the post-financial crash, with the Government paying a portion of the cost, so that business, while coping with the property costs, rent and everything else, can have a dig-out in this time of need to cover that cost? Perhaps local authorities can be inventive by offering rates waivers for the first year or two years to allow properties get off the ground.