Jennifer Carroll MacNeill (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael)
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It is interesting Dr. Quinn should say that, because most people in Ireland are employed by much smaller enterprises, in many respects. On some of what Dr. Quinn said, for example, on hairdressers, I was in touch with them through Irish Small and Medium Employers, ISME, and they were hugely concerned about the emergence of an even stronger black market in their sector and what that meant. As a group of employers who were largely female entrepreneurs hiring largely, but not exclusively, female staff, with all the pressures they were already facing plus a stronger black market economy and how to counter that, I would have thought it was probably a good thing for the Department to be more closely linked with that kind of very on-the-ground retail business.

One of the things I worried about at the time was the risk regarding insurance costs or insurance hikes. We have seen very strong inflationary pressure in the economy, in the past six months in particular. There are international forces at play in that. A big force are the direct cash transfers made to businesses and individuals throughout the pandemic period. Will the Department look at some of those broader effects, or if they are linked effects, in the course of its review as well as the actual operation of the scheme?