Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I will move on to my other question because I used all my time the last time and did not get to question the ESRI. I appreciate the response from Dr. McDonnell.

I have a question for Mr. Fergal O'Brien. IBEC's pre-budget submission did not have any specific proposals on energy costs for business. There is huge volatility here and it could get really messy in the next couple of days, never mind the next couple of weeks with what is happening with Putin, gas and all of that. I come from rural Donegal and there are shops there that need freezers, fridges and so on. They do not have enough product going out the door to pay for their energy increases. We do have a major crisis in terms of the sustainability of certain businesses in areas where the footfall is not there, or which do not have the scale. What does it mean in reality? What would Mr. O'Brien say if the Ministers for Finance or for Enterprise, Trade and Employment were sitting across from him and asked what IBEC needed? We need a rescue package.

We have the toolbox following Covid. It was invented and it can be tweaked. What do we need to look at? Is it supports for certain types of businesses in terms of grant aid or is it the rates again? What needs to be done to ensure that businesses are able to trade through what is a war-time scenario in terms of the energy costs they are seeing at this point in time?