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

I earlier answered questions on the 2 m rule so I might answer the Deputy's other questions now. The plan as of now for the summer programme is that the Minister for Heath, Deputy Harris, and the Minister for Education and Skills, Deputy McHugh, will bring their proposals to Cabinet tomorrow. All things going to plan, we will sign off on that tomorrow, they will make the announcement and hopefully that will answer any questions or allay any concerns that people have. I absolutely understand the stress that parents with children who have special needs are under at the moment. I spoke to some of them who are very much at the end of their tethers and we have been working hard for the past couple of weeks to put something in place so that those children get the education and stimulation they need over the summer period, both home-based and school-based. That is what we are working towards.

On Galway 2020, I share in the sentiment of Deputy Grealish's words. I do not think anybody could have endured the amount of bad luck that Galway 2020 has. It was going to be great. I was excited about it and the Government was happy to support it financially. We could not do the launch because of a storm and then along came a pandemic which meant we could not do it at all. I do not know if it can be done but perhaps there is some way that we can do it next year or the year after, or something like that, and make it even better than it would have been in 2020. It is a shame that the city and country lost out on that.

On the question about business, there is a three-month rates waiver in place. That is not a deferral, it is a waiver. There is a reopening grant of up to €10,000 available to businesses. There is also the wage subsidy scheme which has now been extended to August which will pay a big part of the wage bill for businesses reopening. There is also access to low-cost loans.

On seasonal workers, we did consider what the Deputy suggested but it is not something we believe we can do. It is one thing to put in place a wage subsidy for somebody who was on the payroll but it is quite a different thing to put in place a wage subsidy for somebody who thinks that they might have been on the payroll. It is hard to assess that.

Supports have been put in place for business and by no means is everything that has been announced the end of the matter. We appreciate that more will need to be done to help businesses reopen and survive in the coming months. We are examining other measures and are happy to hear people's suggestions in that regard. One thing we cannot do is a 0% VAT rate. There is an EU VAT directive and, unless that changes, one cannot introduce any new zero-rated VAT goods or services. Rates can be reduced but not to zero in those cases. One can only have a certain number of rates. Businesses really need demand more than a low VAT rate. They need footfall and people spending money. We will need a domestic tourism campaign to encourage people to take a break or holiday at home over the summer period if they can afford to do so. We also need to encourage people to spend in local shops again because, while many people have seen their incomes badly hit by the pandemic, there is a whole other group of people who did not lose their jobs and have been accumulating savings over the past couple of weeks and months. The best thing that those people can do when the economy reopens is to spend money in the economy and they should be encouraged to do so because, by their doing so, other people will be able to get back to work.

I would hate to see what happened during the last recession happen again, where people who did have a bit of money were almost afraid to spend it. We need the reverse of that and to encourage those who can to spend money in the economy in order that others who do not have money can get back to work and do the same.

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