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

I thank the Deputy. We all just tried to play our part during what was an awfully challenging and difficult two years. I remember being in this committee and releasing previous stability programme updates at a time in which we had more than 600,000 on the employment wage subsidy scheme. I vividly remember many of the moments over the last two years in which we were so concerned regarding the viability and future of tens of thousands of employers.

We are facing a whole new set of challenges. I am conscious they are causing such real difficulty and stress to so many at the moment but we are facing into those challenges in the context of the policies we have put in place for the last two years to help employers get through the pandemic. Those policies worked. We are now facing into the next set of challenges with 2.5 million people working in the economy and a deficit that is far smaller than we could have expected a year ago. We must use both of those to our advantage in the time ahead.

On the point on how we can get more truck drivers in place, there are two aspects. The first is visas and the second is the work being led by the Minister for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science, Deputy Harris, on apprenticeship and retraining programmes. That is what we have got to do. For those who want to come into our country to work, we must facilitate them in doing that. For those who want to change work or acquire new skills, the work the Minister is doing in apprenticeships and trying to support people going into new roles is essential, long overdue and he is delivering it. That is the work we must continue with.