Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

I will support the amendment, although I accept the points the Minister of State made about where the details are decided. The greatest risk will be people not being able to go back to work. The cost of that includes unemployment payments. Then there are the secondary aspects of this, namely, the jobs that will be lost directly and the knock-on effects for suppliers, including the loss of more jobs.

Also to be considered are the ancillary costs of unemployment, not least the impact on the person training people, and the costs of medical cards and housing assistance payments. If even a portion of the jobs were to be saved by having an interest rate of 0% for a short duration, to give people a fighting chance to get back up and running, it would make very good economic sense. Those kinds of things have to be factored in when considering the interest rate. When the Minister of State talks about high risk, he should note the highest risk is that of not getting people back to work. The expensive money may well be even more expensive because we have to borrow it as a State, if we are running deficits, to increase the amount available to a cohort who would be unemployed, for example.

I hope the Minister of State will consider this fund in the round and not exclusively as a microfinance fund. I ask him to consider how many jobs the fund might save. Deputy O'Reilly made the point that those affected did not close their businesses and did not plan and could not have planned for what happened. Therefore, it is not a matter of examining how such a fund was handled in the past but of accounting for what is a unique situation. Counterparts across Europe have lower interest rates. We have the double whammy associated with the risk of a no-deal Brexit. Even if there is a deal, it will have an impact on the economy so there is a genuine argument for the fund to be seen as an investment.

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