Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Wednesday, 17 November 2021

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation

Impact of the Withdrawal of Covid-19 Measures on Business: Discussion

Photo of Garret AhearnGarret Ahearn (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

If Mr. Hughes could send on a breakdown that would be very helpful. It seems to me that some people struggle with the paperwork. One or two other speakers referred to this earlier. It is frustrating for some, especially in the agricultural sector, who find the level of paperwork quite demanding.

My next question is for Mr. McDonnell. When I speak to businesses, especially in Tipperary, but also small businesses across the country, they are all very positive about the supports they have been given in the past 18 months to keep them afloat, but there is also a fear about what will happen when the supports end. What is his sense about the long-term challenges businesses will have? He referred in his contribution to the fact that the money will have to be repaid and some businesses will not have anything to fall back on. Following the Government's announcement yesterday that the restrictions were changing, there is a sense in the hospitality sector in particular that it is starting to re-adjust up to Christmas time because there is a real fear that the sector might be going back to somewhere it does not want to go, but its members seem to be making decisions based on the possibility that they could be in trouble in a couple of weeks. Does he sense from small businesses that there is a fear about where they will be in the coming weeks and that they are making strategic decisions based on that without knowing the facts?

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