Marc MacSharry (Sligo-Leitrim, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I will share time with Deputies Calleary, Foley and Christopher O'Sullivan. I will use six minutes to make a statement rather than pose questions. Perhaps the Minister will impose on the Taoiseach to use one of his "Six One" or "The Late Late Show" slots to give answers.

In the meantime, I want to get some things on the record. First, I regret that the senior Minister is not here. I do not doubt the commitment of the Minister of State but I have an issue if those monitoring groups, like the Zoom meeting the Minister of State had with industry yesterday, are not getting to the Cabinet table. Unfortunately, despite the deserved work of the Minister of State over the years in tourism, he is not in the Cabinet. I have a concern that these issues are not getting to Cabinet.

Let us consider the business announcements of last Saturday. Funnily enough, they were not made to the House but to the media, which is standard. At least Hungary has formally suspended its parliament. We have simply somewhat suspended our Parliament in terms of the workings of it. I would prefer if such announcements were made to the House. Be that as it may, the announcements last Saturday were one-size-fits-all and are not worth the paper they were written on, frankly. There is an 80% business guarantee scheme on the never-never. Money is coming in from abroad at -0.75% through SBCI. It goes to banks. They then add on 3% or 4% and apply their own arbitrary underwriting to screw businesses into the ground. That is not the kind of support that is going to support the 20,000 businesses that are already closed in the country. Of 260,000 employees, some 175,000 have already lost their jobs. How many will get them back? We do not know. At the moment there are no industry-specific measures that have been identified to help.

The Zoom meetings the Minister of State has had since 26 February clearly have had no impact. I have outlined why in terms of Cabinet. That is a worrying concern. The first thing the Minister of State needs is a task force with a direct line to Cabinet. This should include people like publicans, who know how to operate a pub; hoteliers, who know how to operate a hotel; restaurateurs, who know how to operate a restaurant; and all the various tour operators, including adventure tourism and the various other types we have in this country. They should be informing the Minister of State. The health people can tell us how it must operate from a health perspective, but those in industry know how to put that stuff into practice. We have not had their input. We have had superficial meetings but the things identified have not come forward.

The first thing that needs to happen with the two European Commissioners who advocate sector-specific measures is that the Germans and the Dutch need to get with the programme. The Germans in particular should cast their minds back to the post Second World War era. We need a Europe-wide perpetual bond so that we can put aside or warehouse the entire cost of this. Fiscally, we would then be free to introduce the kind of sector-specific measures that will be required to get our industries out of trouble.

Do we really need to wait until the end of July to reopen hotels? The Minister of State should talk to the hoteliers. Is there a way that we can bring that back a month? What we are asking these people to do is close for five months and then reopen, be happy and make money operating at 50% capacity. Regarding publicans, I will use Sligo town as an example. I can think of only six of however many pubs there are in the town that could open and apply these social distancing measures. What are we doing for pubs?

Another specific measure the Minister of State must look at is 0% VAT. The Minister of State has said it himself and I am pleased to hear it. Again, however, he is not at Cabinet. These are issues that need to be looked at. Is the message getting through to Robert Watt and the Minister for Finance, Deputy Donohoe? It is the case that 13% of nothing is nothing but 0% VAT allows those people offering tourism product a 13% competitive advantage. As the Minister of State said, tourism will be highly competitive in the new period. There is no doubt about that. As matters stand, from a VAT perspective we are the 28th most expensive country in Europe. Will we look at that? Will we look at excise on alcohol to try to get people in on the basis that these people will not be in a position to be viable at 50% capacity? Again, if the Minister of State had the expertise of the trade in the decision-making room, he would know all of this already. The superficial Zoom meetings need to be backed up with tangible action and not a one-size-fits-all arrangement announced on Saturday to some media organisation. It should have been done in the House. There should be scrutiny and examination and it should be tested by Members, not only the chosen few, like myself, who are lucky to have their names drawn from the hat and get in here to speak for a few minutes once a week or every fortnight.

We also need to look at the French scheme on commercial rents. It is called the 60-20-20 scheme. Under that scheme, 60% of commercial rents are subsidised by the French Government, 20% is reduced by the landlord and 20% is paid by the commercial tenant. In terms of loan schemes, we need to look at 0% loans. The Government can borrow at -0.75%. It should get this funding to the people who need it in the meantime. Commercial rates should be suspended for 12 months. That is what businesses will need. Everyone will need 12 months. What is more, the Government cannot expect local authorities to take the heat on that. It must give them the money in advance or give them the money they are going to lose so that they can continue to provide services locally.

Reopening or restarting grants of between €10,000 and €30,000 will be required. Again, this is all contingent on Europe getting with the programme and realising we need to set aside the entire cost of this. In the context of Ireland, that cost could be €30 billion.

America will have a programme worth €50 billion to try to support the aviation industry. One thing I have a problem with is EC Regulation No. 261/2004, which the Minister of State's Government promoted and asked for in a European context. The regulation stops people getting refunds. I understand that airlines need cashflow at this time but why not let the airlines give the Government a credit note such that the Government pays back the hard-pressed families the cost of the holiday they will face?

I would appreciate it if the Minister of State could take some of those matters on board.

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