Micheál Carrigy (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Just to come in on that, I think the word crisis was used and that is what we need to look at. I totally concur with Mr. Fenn's comments. I do not think now is the time to put up the VAT rate. I would be very strong on that and I have said it publicly that we need to extend it further. I ask the Department and the Minister to consider it further in the context of where we are at. We talked about skills and when these businesses are not operating as they were, the skills are being lost. Chefs and people are being lost out of those businesses. When you look around the country, and I have looked at this a good bit recently myself, there is very little in the line of third-level qualifications to get people qualified in that area; as a chef or otherwise. I know there was an announcement in Killarney with Cork and Kerry education and training boards, ETBs. They were working on and trying to do something for the midlands and the upper area of the country where we do not actually have any proper catering colleges, in order to bring people into the industry. If we restart the hotel industry in a number of years time, we will not have anyone to work in it because everyone will have gone off and done something different. We have the 100% contracts and we do not have those people working. Those bars are not open and the pub down the road is not getting the customers in. We need to stand back and I accept Mr. Ó Lonáin's statement that this is being done but now is not the time to put up the VAT rate. We need to keep the businesses that are there in the current market where there are high costs. I know we are giving supports but it is only 40% of the increases. I have a small busiiness myself and I have seen significant thousands added onto my bill every month. We have minimum wage increases coming up and sick pay next year, so there are huge challenges for that industry in the year ahead and we need to continue to give it support like we did back in 2009, 2010, 2011. We allowed that business to rebuild and build back up to where it was at 250,000 or 260,000 jobs. Can that message be taken back to the Minister? That is my view. We want a robust tourism industry in the future but we need to look at, as I say, the skills we are losing. I really believe we need to look at some model regarding the percentage of the supports we are giving to make sure those businesses stay open in the towns and villages because it is having a massive effect. I can see it in my own local area.