Mr. Adrian Cummins:

I thank the Deputy for the questions. On the staff shortage, we lost 40,000 staff during Covid.

We are trying to build that back up. When the economy is at full employment, we either take from other sectors, which lose staff, or we look to attract people from outside Ireland. The primary location we look to is the European Union. Hospitality across countries in the European Union has seen the same impact on staffing levels due to Covid. We are all in the same boat. We are doing our best to attract new labour supply. It can be seen in other sectors. The construction industry, healthcare, retail and so on are crying out for staff. It will take us time to build the number of employees in our industry back up. We have had success with chefs through the work permit scheme. We got 800 chefs in this year. We expect the same number of chefs to come in next year. I thank the Department for its activity in trying to attract staff and the processing of work permits for our sector over the past 12 to 18 months. Out of 34,000 work permits, hospitality got 800 chefs, which gives an idea of where we are. We do not get any other work permits for other subsectors of hospitality. That should be looked at and permits should be expanded to include more front-of-house staff, for whom there is a requirement.

The Deputy is right about the VAT rate. We need to nail this down once and for all. Businesses need to plan for the future. When they are sitting down with the bank manager, they are planning three to five years ahead. They need to know that the VAT rate is set in place.