Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent) | Oireachtas source

First, I wish the Minister good luck with this new portfolio. She was a good Minister in the past so I know she will be a good Minister in the future. I, too, wish to speak about people from the Music and Entertainment Association of Ireland, MEAI. I have been inundated with calls from people in the music and entertainment sector regarding the stimulus package. They have told me about their hardships as they struggle to pay for their weekly shopping, with their utility bills in arrears. There is the threat of losing their cars and in some cases their homes.

The package proposed by the Minister for Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht fails to understand how this sector works. The Arts Council does not represent the workers in this sector and the money ploughed into the Arts Council will not trickle down to these working musicians and entertainers. With regard to this Bill, not enough is being done for this sector. The Minister for Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht is like a farmer with 200 cows who have nothing to eat. The farmer gets money that could feed every cow but instead he feeds ten cows and spends the rest of the money putting a cinema screen in the shed so the other 190 cows can watch the videos of the cows eating the grass. The extra €54 million the Department has provided so far, or promised to provide, could cover the cost of the music and entertainment survival subsidy scheme, ensuring each of the estimated 30,000 workers in this industry, although I believe it is probably 35,000, could have their reduced rate of PUP topped up to €350 per week. This sector needs a survival package so it can survive until it is deemed safe to reopen after social distancing measures are gone. The sector is struggling and is being left behind. I ask the Minister and her Department to work in conjunction with the Minister for Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht to ensure it is not left behind.

I also wish to highlight something to the Minister with regard to saving jobs. I had to approach previous Ministers in the Department such as the current Tánaiste. I had to approach him one day, and I have looked through my notes to see if I could find the note to show it to the Minister. It relates to the disgraceful action that is taking place in the Minister's Department whereby recipients of social welfare are receiving letters from the Department telling them to get their payment put into the bank. In other words, they are bypassing the post office. I will always give credit where it is due. I handed one such letter to Deputy Varadkar in the Dáil restaurant one day. He said, "That is wrong and should not be happening".

He went away and got it sorted. I am telling the Minister there are offices around the country and people in her Department sending out these letters. I would love to know, on the record of the Dáil, what set have people working in the Department on our post office network. Why do they hate the post offices so much that they want people to go into banks for their payments and want to stop our post offices surviving? I wish to put on the record, in case anyone says I did not, that I am a postmaster of a small post office. Of course I want to see my post office survive, but I want to see every other post office survive. It is a matter of jobs in local communities and a local service. I appeal to the Minister to go back to these people working in her Department on this. I would love to take them out, face them and ask them why they are sending out letters telling people they have to go to the bank and leaving out the post office. We are trying every day to keep post offices open. I leave that job with the Minister.

I am terribly worried about seasonal workers. Before coming in the door here, I heard from a seasonal worker who worked locally in a place in Kenmare and whose seasonal work is gone from them. They tell me they cannot get anything now. For God's sake, will the Government please do something to try to pick up these people, including young students, who cherished every hour they had during the summer months and who have had no work at all this year. The prospects for them are very bad. What can we do to help these people? They are facing into a new academic year in college. They do not want to be a strain on their mothers or fathers. They want to try to ensure they have their own bit of money in their pockets. I ask the Minister to try to help these people in every way she can. I thank her and wish her nothing but good luck for as long as she is in her position.

See this speech in context