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

I met representatives of ISME last week. We are paying attention to what other countries do and every country's package is different. We compare favourably when it comes to the pandemic unemployment payment. Not many countries are providing €350 per week to workers. That is triple what it is in Northern Ireland or Britain. We compare quite well when it comes to the wage subsidy scheme, which will end in the UK, for example, in October. We have not yet set a date for ours. We probably need to do more with direct grants and in terms of our loan guarantee. These are the kinds of things we are working on for next week and beyond.

Regarding next spring, unfortunately none of us can predict the future. I anticipate we will have spikes and clusters but I hope we will not return to a nationwide lockdown again, which will allow the economy to recover. I hope we will get to the point where we have a vaccine, effective treatments and potentially screening at airports and so on. That would allow a decent tourism season to happen next year. This year will be very difficult but I hope Christmas and next year will be good and maybe there will be pent-up demand to help compensate for some of the losses this year.

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