Niall Collins (Limerick County, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

At the outset of the pandemic the focus was rightly on the medical and health response and on a financial buffer for families and workers.

It is fair to say that a lot of the critique and narrative that has followed on from that centres on what we are doing for SMEs. The message I am getting - I am sure others are getting it too - is that SMEs feel not enough is being done for them. Employees have had the opportunity to sign up to the Covid-19 payment and the wage subsidy scheme but employers - the SMEs, the people who hope to take employees back and get their businesses open again - feel that not enough is being done for them and that they are being left behind. This is critically important. In Limerick and the mid-west region where I come from, 55,000 people signed up to the Covid-19 payment, with 22,000 of them coming from Limerick alone. If a single employer in Limerick employing 10,000 or 15,000 people - as was the case in the past with Dell - closed, there would be an immediate response to that employer. More needs to be done. The Department's Covid-19 business tracker support data shows that around 2,300 SMEs have availed of various supports. That is a shockingly low number given that the total number of SMEs in the country is well in excess of 100,000. We must have more focus on employers. The Central Bank tells us that SMEs are going to need €2.4 billion over the next three months. What are they going to need beyond that? We must look at SMEs through two sets of lenses. What do we do for them to get them through the Covid period and what do we do to reboot and kick-start them after the crisis is over and the pandemic has gone away? That is a huge job of work. The point must be made that funding from Europe, whether through the European Investment Bank, EIB, the European Central Bank, ECB, or any other avenue, is available to the State at zero or very low interest but is being passed on or made available to SMEs at rates of 4%, 5% or even 5.5%. Why are the pillar banks and State agencies taking that kind of margin? Why is that cost being imposed on SMEs? We should be allowed to pass the money that we are getting at zero or near to zero cost on to SMEs in grant form, in liquidity form or in loan form at zero cost. That must be a major focus. The State needs to reform the Strategic Banking Corporation of Ireland, SBCI, and the other vehicles that we are using to get the funding through and avoid using the pillar banks which are basically price-gouging.

We need to have a State-led business interruption response. We are hearing calls for a zero VAT rate, for rates breaks and various other measures from the representative bodies of small businesses including hoteliers, retailers and those in the hospitality industry. This is particularly important in the absence of such a response from the insurance industry. FBD, in particular, must be called out for its shameful reneging on valid business interruption policies. I have seen correspondence with some policy holders specifically telling them that they are covered for the coronavirus. I am sure other Deputies have also seen such correspondence. The way that FBD has treated policy holders and businesses is outrageous in the extreme. They have paid their premiums and are now likely to have to resort to legal avenues to pursue the insurance companies who should be stepping up to the plate. The Government should also be stepping up to the plate and ensuring that business interruption payments flow to businesses.

I have a number of questions I want to put to the Minister. Is she aware of the SME recovery plan that has been drafted by the various representative organisations in conjunction with the former Secretary General of the Department of Finance, Mr. John Moran? Under the four headings of crisis management, financing, taxation and cost-flexing, it outlines a suite of measures to help businesses to get through the period, to kick-start and re-open. Will the Minister engage with them on this plan? I refer here to real and meaningful engagement. Can the Minister pursue the option of getting finance, grants and liquidity to business at zero cost? If we are getting money at 0%, can we not pass it on thus? Will the Minister consider giving businesses grants rather than loading them with more debt? Finally, will she work on behalf of the many policy holders who have been reneged on shamefully by FBD, in the main, as well as by some other insurance companies?

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