Jackie Cahill (Tipperary, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

We find ourselves in the unique situation of an economic crisis caused by a health emergency. Businesses that in normal times would be on a sound financial footing are now under significant economic pressure, unfortunately, because their working capital is completely tied up or their cash flow has stopped. That is why I am delighted to have this opportunity to welcome the credit guarantee scheme. A sum of €2 billion sounds like a ferocious amount but there is much pent-up demand for this credit scheme. Our SMEs are very important and it is essential that we do everything in our power to help them.

The cost of this loan scheme must be kept to a minimum. We have seen other initiatives where interest rates have been quoted at between 4% and 5%. That is not acceptable given the cost of money on the financial markets. The reality is that the public and businesspeople have completely lost confidence in the banks. Every week, people come into my clinics who have been trying to get mortgages and some who had already been approved for mortgages by financial institutions. Like many hundreds of thousands of other people, they have gone on supporting payments because of changed circumstances due to the coronavirus or they have moved jobs and have gone on to contract employment. The banks are refusing to honour their previous commitments to people seeking mortgages. We devote much attention in this House to the housing crisis and rightly so. The issue regarding the ability of young couples to avail of mortgages during this pandemic must get more attention. The way our banks are treating these people has to come under greater scrutiny. I urge the Minister to give directives to the banks regarding people who, through no fault of their own, have changed circumstances. The commitments given to those people should be honoured.

The July stimulus package, of approximately €7 billion, will also be announced this week. I reiterate that the pressure on businesses is immense. Two weeks ago during a Topical Issue debate, I made a plea on behalf of private bus operators. They are under great pressure and they are the cornerstone of the infrastructure for our tourism industry. Like many other sectors, those businesses will not recover even in 2021 or 2022. Even if the pandemic goes well and a vaccine is found, those businesses will not return to where they would have been even in 2022 and they will need ongoing help into the future. We have some of the big operators in that sector in our neck of the woods and they are a key part of our tourism infrastructure. Those operators have buses sitting in their yards that were bought new this spring for €350,000 in preparation for this year's tourism season. The problems for those operators are not going to go away today, tomorrow or even in six months.

Like other Deputies, I was disappointed that the pubs were not allowed to open. I accept fully that decisions regarding the health of our citizens are paramount. Unfortunately, rural publicans cannot understand how pubs in large urban centres can open while those pubs that would count ten or 15 people a big crowd cannot. Restricted admission might have got us over some of the problems that the health officials thought the opening of rural pubs might cause. The health experts told us that when the economy started to reopen that cases would increase. That is normal, because people are mixing more and that was bound to happen. Publicans need clear guidance and they were very cross at the lateness of this decision. All the indications coming up to last weekend and last Monday suggested that pubs would be allowed to open. Many publicans had ordered stock, serviced their coolers and incurred additional expense. These are people who have had no cash flow since mid-March. If there are going to be changes to the roadmap, those changes need to be signposted well in advance.

Like my fellow Government Deputies, I welcome this initiative. The costs for businesses, however, must be kept at a reasonable level. Our businesses and SMEs never wanted help more if we are going to reboot our economy. Figures are being bandied about this week regarding the large amounts that will be coming from the EU, but that is over a seven-year period. Many businesses will need grants as well as loans and businesses in some sectors that are under more pressure than others. This is a unique situation and austerity will not solve it. We must spend our way out of this crisis and we must give help to these businesses to get back on an even keel and to do that as soon as possible.

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