Alan Farrell (Dublin Fingal, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I will be brief as I will be taking the Chair in a moment. I congratulate the Tánaiste on his new role and wish him and the Cabinet well. I reiterate what has been said by a number of colleagues regarding liquidity and the importance of simplifying the process of availing of such loans through the State mechanisms that have already been provided. Among all the reading that I have no doubt Ministers will be doing in the coming days and weeks, it is worth considering the potential for a business-led simplification of the likes of the SBCI, Strategic Banking Corporation of Ireland, process, among other things. There are opportunities to recognise the complexity of the existing processes and there is room for improvement in that overall process.

I echo some of the comments made by members of the business community at the Covid-19 committee this morning. They provided estimates of upwards of €15 billion to stave off the closure of thousands of businesses across this State in the coming weeks and months. While I accept that is an extremely difficult ask, there are steps we should take to provide as much of a stimulus as we can as part of the July package on which the Minister, the Tánaiste and the Taoiseach are working. It will be a very interesting process to go through that in this Chamber over the coming weeks.

My final remarks relate to a question that has been asked by a number of individuals and the Tánaiste might consider it in the coming days. While local authority rates are not a huge amount of money for the vast majority of businesses, are we storing up problems by deferring rates rather than waiving or partially waiving them for certain small to medium-sized enterprises? They are the ones that are going to struggle the most when attempting to reopen, regardless of whether they started doing so yesterday or will start in the coming days. It is an exceedingly difficult task to restart having been closed for two or three months.

Then there is the probability that the rates bill will present itself at a later date, so perhaps some consideration can be given to that. I am grateful for the opportunity to address this important Estimate.

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