Matt Shanahan (Waterford, Independent)
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I thank the Tánaiste and his officials from the Department here today. We are in unprecedented times, without a shadow of a doubt. If I may, I will jump around on a few of the different issues before I address some of the aspects of the report.

The leisure and hospitality sectors have been particularly badly hit and are wondering if they will be able to open over Christmas. Consider the bar trade at the moment and furloughed staff receiving PUP. If there is a signalling that we will open up for Christmas and staff have to come off the payment, and if we then have to go back into a lockdown in January, they will not be able to reclaim the PUP again. They would go onto jobseeker's allowance. This will stop pubs from being able to get their staff back to work. Could the Minister look at some sort of derogation or an exception to allow people to recruit, and see where we can end up on that?

On the Covid restrictions support scheme, CRSS, we have communicated on this and the Minister has highlighted that it is for exposed businesses who have fixed costs related to their premises that are closed. However, festivals, caterers and circuses are excluded. There are many businesses that have fixed costs but do not operate a premises. There is a major catering business in Dungarvan, for example, that employs up to 80 people when it is at its busiest but who are furloughed at the moment. That business is not able to claim anything under the crisis. They are suffering because they have leases running on equipment. Catering equipment can be terribly expensive. They are looking for support. Can we look at some way to offer a hand up for these specific sectoral businesses? They are facing very difficult times, like everybody else, but they have been excluded under CRSS. They thought they would have got money from it, and maybe it could be examined.

I also wrote to the Minister on some of the activities of the Companies Registration Office. The Minister kindly responded to a parliamentary question on it. I was specifically referencing the requirement for auditing for small businesses that fail to make their returns within their annual return date. The Department came back and said they had guidance that 70% of businesses were reporting on time and that 30% were due to report but it would be impossible to have visibility on that 30%. We have to recognise what is happening to businesses out there. People in small businesses, some of which have been closed, are trying to collect debts, they may have VAT overhangs, they may have rent overhangs, they are trying to file returns and they are not getting them in on time. Straight away, because they have missed their annual return date, they are into an automatic audit for two years. It will cost a small business anywhere from €1,500 to €2,500 to have this done. It is a huge and stressful thing. I ask again if we could not look at providing some derogation on that requirement for the next six or nine months to get out the other side of where we are going with Covid.

I shall now turn to the expenditure being voted. The 2016 OECD report, which I have mentioned before in a different committee, highlighted that Ireland had one of the least effective parliamentary engagements on budgetary oversight. There is unprecedented expenditure in this year's budget. Given Covid, and I am not saying anything about that, it is certainly appropriate that we need to see where the State is going. I ask that the Department would provide an information note for data users and a county breakdown of the drawdown of the various Covid subsidies that have been given to date so we can have transparency, and to make sure we are hitting all the regions in all the sectors as we should be.

Another item I will bring to the Department's attention, which has been mentioned before, is the issue of forbearance. To be fair, the banks have been treating the larger SMEs with a fair amount of forbearance, but I do not think it is extending to the smaller ones. There are smaller businesses that owe small amounts of money and they have no cash flow at the moment. Again, maybe a communication to senior people in the financial sector to say "Look, you cannot get blood from a stone" might help. These people need to get back in business and to be asking them to start making payments when they are out of business is ridiculous. It is putting huge stress on people. Whether it is to do with mortgages or leases, surely there must be some way of getting forbearance there.

The Covid rapid response in life sciences projects are both really good. I approve of them and they are a fantastic way to get people up and going.

However, there was no project approved under the Covid rapid response for the south east. I do not know the reason for that, but that seems to be the return on it. I previously mentioned the South Eastern Applied Materials, SEAM, technology gateway in Waterford Institute of Technology, WIT, to the Tánaiste. It is the only technology gateway of 15 in the country that has remained open throughout Covid. It is liaising with industry in Ireland and abroad. An X-ray machine required by this facility and approved by Science Foundation Ireland two years ago still has not been funded. The cost is approximately €2.5 million. There is a huge volume of business being done at this facility. The SEAM technology gateway is currently submitting patents for new respiratory masks for ICU care. I do not know why we have fallen between stools. In regard to the x-ray machine, I would like to know if another request for funding could be made. I ask the Tánaiste to ensure an X-ray machine is funded for this technology gateway, which is one of the highest performing in the country. As I said, this facility is open and operating to try to build its business and it makes perfect sense to provide that funding.

In regard to the innovation hubs and the enterprise centres, I heard a discussion on radio this morning about the importance of broadband provision to all houses. I disagree. The priority should be to get broadband into every village and small town and to locate an innovation centre or hub in each of those villages and towns. Many people working in small businesses do a lot better when working remotely if they can do so from a local community centre with other people in the company. This is far better for the business and much better in terms of creativity and innovation. We should be putting emphasis on this first and let the broadband-to-home follow.