Bríd Smith (Dublin South Central, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

I am sharing time with Deputy Paul Murphy.

I want to start by saying something positive to and about the Tánaiste's new Ministry. I recall the zeal and the scrutiny he had in a previous Ministry. We all remember the campaign he launched to account for every penny spent in the then Department of Social Protection when it came to social welfare recipients and welfare cheats who cheat us all.

I look forward to a campaign of real zeal in the Minister's analysis and scrutiny of the grants and funding to businesses, especially to large firms and to multinationals. I want to be absolutely clear that we fully support the grants, aid and help being given to small and medium size firms, but we have a problem that it is difficult from the information we get to decipher who is getting what and for what purpose. We would appreciate more clarification on this.

The largest increase of funding is allocated to Enterprise Ireland for capital spending, which is fine, but who is getting it and what is the breakdown in size and sector for the disbursement of these additional supports?

It would also be useful if we could actually make sure that the current supports have worked and were targeted at the right areas. I would like to see, for example, very targeted policies to relieve the demands for rents on local shops, cafes etc. in our local communities, many of which now seem to be facing a renewed onslaught from banks and landlords. We need - and needed - a blanket policy on a rent amnesty during the Covid-19 crisis.

Equally, many small business are finding themselves unable to get the wage subsidy scheme they had because post-lockdown they have a different workforce to pre-lockdown. We need to create a level playing field for all local small businesses.

I want to make a general point on the wage subsidy scheme. In other jurisdictions there are provisos around state support for bigger industries. They cannot have avoided tax, cannot have off-loaded their profits offshore and if they are profitable they cannot avail of the scheme or at least there would be a clawback when the companies return to profitability. We do not seem to have those conditions imposed here. We do, however, see companies such as Aer Lingus and Ryanair cutting their work force and cutting pay while at the same time having their hands out to the State.

I will end by asking the Minister a direct question. Last week a High Court sent shockwaves across the construction industry in particular when it decided on the unconstitutionality of the sectoral employment order, SEO. This judgment may also affect many other sectoral employment orders and employment regulation orders, EROs. Indeed, it could be very important in the contract cleaning industry and in the difficult sector of security. It affects hundreds of thousands of workers. This is why it is important that we have something to say about it. The conclusion of the High Court was that competition and the rights of employers trumps the desire to ensure decent wages and conditions. It is beyond belief that a court might say the Dáil does not have the right to legislate for the protection of workers in any sector in the country. We do not want to see a race to the bottom in workers' pay, terms and conditions. This is an opportunity for the new Minister to surprise us all and to defend our right as legislators to legislate to protect workers' pay and conditions. Will the Minister commit to appealing the High Court decision and to defending robustly the SEOs?

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