Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

With Deputy Harkin. It will be five minutes and five minutes.

I hope to ask three specific questions, and the Minister might answer them. I will put them as quickly as I can. Two are practical questions. What engagement has the Minister's Department had with the Department of Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht regarding the aftermath of the decision to close the Irish colleges, affecting 40 colleges, 700 families and 27,000 students? I understand from replies to parliamentary questions that the Minister was going to look at adapting existing packages to address the consequences.

My second question relates to personal protective equipment, PPE. I thank the Parliamentary Budget Office for this document, which I have read. It points out that Ireland relies heavily on other countries for PPE. Given that Ireland's imports of PPE amounted to €340 million more than its exports, making ours the seventh largest PPE trade deficit in the EU, what are the Department's plans to make us not self-sufficient, but to go along that road? I have two masks in my bag here. I do not wish to mention them as a gimmick, only to point out that they are works of art made by a woman in Galway for a nursing home. There is fantastic goodwill on the ground.

My final question is on small to medium enterprises. The Minister will be able to read the specific question that I have already asked. I read the Central Bank's two financial notes that came out last week. According to them, non-agricultural small to medium businesses employ more than 1 million people and, given the various indices and criteria, the requirement for liquidity will be between €2.4 billion and €5.7 billion. These figures are based on existing costs, for example, rents, rates and utilities, but what if companies could reduce those costs?

While I welcome the approach of the Minister's Department to date, particularly the help for employers, I am concerned by her comments today that businesses should go to the bank first. The Department should read what the Central Bank stated. I do not always agree with the Central Bank, but it talked about the non-availability of bank loans for quite a number of the companies in question. It also pointed out the cascade effect on those further up the chain that, while unaffected by Covid-19, could not supply or get money from those lower down. I do not mean "lower down" in that way, but further down the supply chain. Clearly, there is a need for a new roadmap to show how we will provide liquidity to small businesses.

I come from Galway. As with other towns and cities, it is despairing to walk its streets. Businesses have been good in complying with all of the measures, but they need hope now. The Minister mentioned the suspension of rates, but we need more than that. We need a plan that allows businesses to come back, albeit in a sustainable manner.

I will leave the Minister with a little time to answer, as my colleague will use the last five minutes.

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