David Stanton (Cork East, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Ms Buckley mentioned creative ways to assist. I think she was talking about backdating the payment to March. I am not sure what the cost of that would be. We all recognise that Government can only go so far. It cannot alleviate the entire cost that is imposed. Mr. Moran illustrated quite well the fact that businesses have absorbed so much but you can only do so much. We recognise that too.

Mr. Jennings mentioned that the Convenience Stores and Newsagents Association is not part of the Labour Employer Economic Forum, LEEF. I am interested in the reasons we have been given about why it is not a member of LEEF. Could Mr. Moran come back to us on that at some stage?

In normal times, increased wages, sick pay, pension provision, rates demands, insurance costs, the deposit return scheme, the latté levy and traffic could be absorbed by various businesses and sectors - possibly with a bit of pain but it probably could be done. Some of them have benefits in their own way. For example, we do not want people who are sick coming into work for obvious reasons. We have done a lot of work on insurance but I am concerned that it is not filtering down and that is something we need to work on. The major issue is energy costs and we need to do a lot more there.