Damien English (Meath West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

To conclude and add to the comments I made earlier, Deputy Ó Cuív rightly raised the tourism and hospitality sector. With regard to any further targeted measures specifically aimed at that sector, in March 2020, a dedicated tourism recovery task force was established made up of leaders of various sectors of the industry who will work together to deal with the many challenges ahead. It is specifically tasked with identifying measures required to enable Irish tourism to recover from the devastating effects of Covid-19. Naturally, the work of the task force will feed into the stimulus plan in July as well as the long-term recovery plan in line with the budget in October. We welcome any comments or suggestions in that regard. When he addressed the House yesterday on the Microenterprise Loan Fund (Amendment) Bill, the Tánaiste asked anybody who wished to do so to bring forward suggestions or ideas. We will tease these out and they will feed into the plan. Work on the July stimulus plan is ongoing in the Department and other Departments.

The Deputy rightly identified some of the issues with the existing schemes that might affect the hospitality sector. All the existing schemes and all the efforts we have made in response to the Covid-19 outbreak are being reviewed and checked with a view to identifying changes we could make to enhance them. I will certainly feed into that review the issues the Deputy raised tonight. If he has any other suggestions, we will happy to feed those in also.

We are conscious that we have committed over €12 billion of taxpayers' money to supports. We also know, as does every Member of this House, that will not be enough. We need to add to that and we are very much committed to doing that. A package will be brought forward later this month. We will build on that and we look forward to working with Deputy Ó Cuív and all those who represent the hospitality sector on bringing forward long-term plans because the recovery will not be immediate in some sectors. We can make immediate interventions, which will help these sectors to survive, but we need to commit to this in the long term and we will do that. I look forward to working with the House in that regard.

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