Marc MacSharry (Sligo-Leitrim, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I do not want to be telling the Minister of State his business but I respectfully suggest he would invite in the CEOs of the Government pillar banks and representatives of the credit union movement. Unfortunately, the Central Bank seems to have a basic aversion to allowing the credit unions to do anything with their €20 billion other than hide it under the bed. All that money is there and we could use it. My respectful suggestion to the Minister of State would be to grab it by the scruff of the neck. He should drag in the banks because if we wait for the administrative merry-go-round to dish it out, he and I will be old men, or I will probably be dead and the Minister of State will be an old man. That covers that element.

I welcome this opportunity to engage with the Minister, Deputy Catherine Martin. I know the Chair will cut me off if I go over my time. I sympathise with the Minister's position on the night-time economy and hospitality sector because there is an irrational focus on the ability of six people sitting in a bar to spread Covid with 51,000 people singing in the Aviva Stadium not appearing to be capable of doing the same or worse. Who from the Minister's Department is a member of NPHET? Some 38 people are members of it. They are all physicians and nobody from the Department is a member of it.