Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The Deputy is absolutely right in his initial comments that businesses need money to restart. That is why rates are being waived for three months and businesses can reclaim their rates from 2019. Businesses that are reopening can claim up to €10,000 worth of their rates from 2019, so it is effectively a rates rebate. Some 80% of businesses in Ireland pay less than €10,000 a year in rates so this is particularly advantageous for those small shops and businesses that we all want to see up and running really quickly because they are the ones that employ considerable numbers of people around the country, particularly in rural Ireland.

There is also the temporary wage subsidy scheme, which will continue, and the credit guarantee scheme, which will give loans at favourable rates to viable businesses that will be able to pay them back.

The Minister for Finance is in contact with the banks all the time and I hope to meet them myself in the next couple of weeks, if not the next couple of days. I will raise with them the issue of banks not getting back to people quickly enough.

On one factual matter, we do not own the banks but we are the majority shareholder in two of them.

We need to help dentists to get back up and running again and my office is in contact with the IDA about that.

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