Seán Canney (Galway East, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank the officials for their opening statements. Many small businesses more or less looked at the support scheme and found they could not be eligible for it no matter what they did. To return to the framing of the scheme, it was done in a way, it seemed, that was trying to keep people out rather than get them in. It has left a bad taste and also left businesses trying to recover from an expectation they had they would get support and the fact the support was not there when they went after it.

The most damning thing with the scheme is that as a temporary support it did not hit the spot, if one might put it that way. We now have small businesses still struggling to come to terms with whether they will be able to survive a year or two afterwards and are still feeling the effects of it. When we talk about the numbers that took up the scheme, it was not a great day at the office for whoever invented or put together this scheme. We can also say it was done in a way to try to help people but all of the criteria that were set out seemed to exclude rather than include people and it has left a bad taste in people's mouths. Is it not time right now to re-evaluate what happened with that scheme because effectively it was a failure when only 1,000 picked up on it? Then on the other side of the coin, there is the debt warehousing that happened. Some 70% is still owed. They are small amounts of money when you read about them but it is probably all small businesses that owe these and it is big money to them in relative terms, as well as trying to keep on top of their existing and ongoing obligations and commitments. The one thing that businesses keep saying to me is that it is not understood by politicians or by Departments the difficulty they are having now. They are debating on an ongoing basis whether it is worth their while keeping their businesses going or if they should just close them, go to work some place where they get a weekly wage and guarantee something for their families. Will the witnesses comment on that? I am trying to portray the feeling of the business people I know. I will come back on one or two other things as well after that.