John Clendennen (Offaly, Fine Gael)

I thank the witnesses for joining us. To pick up on the earlier VAT discussion, I question the estimates given in relation to the cost based on the Revenue statistics unit and what it has outlined as the cost of food and catering at €674 million annually. This is not about trying to give more profit to businesses. It is fundamentally about protecting jobs. What I am seeing, particularly in rural areas, is that difficult decisions are being made by businesses, in that it is being felt it is more viable to close midweek to stay open at the weekends. This is because the cost base, essentially, got too high over seven days a week. If the cost base gets too high over seven days, and businesses decide to reduce to five-day operations, that is essentially an impact on employment. We are not seeing full head counts lost, but we are definitely seeing an impact in relation to wages and salary payments. That has a knock-on impact in a small village or small town, or even a bigger town, regardless of whether it is a big or small employer.

When the witnesses talk about bringing this in as a temporary experiment, I think, considering the number of challenges there now in relation to energy, insurance, labour, tax and so on, this cannot be a roll of the dice. We need to give businesses certainty and predictability. The idea of just rolling this proposal out for 24 months or whatever period of time and then having a look at it again does anything but what we need to do in respect of an objective of providing certainty. Anything to the contrary would have a further detrimental effect, especially for small businesses right across the country. Would the witnesses agree this VAT measure would protect jobs?