Michael Fitzmaurice (Roscommon-Galway, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I join colleagues in wishing the Minister, Deputy Humphreys, the best of luck in her new role. I have dealt with her in several different Departments and she has a job of work to do in her new portfolio, first of all in the area of social protection. It is not the Minister's fault and no reflection on her, but I am saddened that rural affairs will not have a separate, independent Department. I am sure she will do her best in this regard, as she comes from a good rural area in Monaghan. It is important that we give the time to rural affairs as well as social protection. I know there is an emphasis on the latter at this time. With the situation we are in, the Minister's hands are probably full trying to cater for all the different problems that are arising.

One such problem is the number of business people who have taken out loans and are providing employment to people. Just because they are over 66 years of age, they are not entitled to any payment. These people are risk takers and they are giving employment throughout the country. Their situation is an anomaly in the whole system. Some of them are driving buses serving the tourism industry, for example, and they are left high and dry at this time. I see similar difficulties for people in other sectors. In the case of plasterers, for instance, there are people who want to hand on the torch and train another generation. That type of training opportunity might be scarce but there are people offering it. In the case of lorry drivers, to give another example, it costs probably €4,500 to €5,000 to put a young person forward for the test. Such opportunities are not plentiful and there is no point in saying they are. Unfortunately, the people who want to give those chances are being left behind. A sector that never got going, because it is seasonal, is the hospitality sector. When the payments came in for workers affected by the Covid pandemic, those businesses had not yet opened their doors. People in that industry are not getting the same opportunity other people are getting.

I saw the Minister nodding when Deputy Harkin spoke about the particular difficulties facing small business owners. I spoke during the week to the owner of a small photography business. This person rents a property and has to pay for electricity and other things, Covid or no Covid. That business is at a standstill at the moment because the owner's main work is doing school photographs and things like that. I know there is a rates rebate, but the owner has all the general expenses of running a business to meet. It is a small set-up and, when the whole thing is done, the owner takes something like €220 or €230 out of it every week. Now Revenue, or the Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection, has decided this person will be getting only €203 per week. That is very harsh because the ground rent and all the different facets of running a business will still have to paid for. No landlord will say to a tenant that he or she can forget about the rent for six months. There might be a bit of a reduction given, but businesses will still have to contribute something. We need to think about people in that situation.

I join Deputy Harkin in endorsing Deputy McNamara's amendment. It is well thought out and we should support it.

During the Covid crisis, the farming community and the agricultural sector kept the lights on in this country. They should be acknowledged for that, just as all front-line workers should be acknowledged. I ask the Minister, under her social protection remit, that when it comes to the few euro the farmers get, to consider increasing the disregard when the means testing is done. Many farmers have only small farms but they went out every morning, brought the cattle to the factories and kept the food on the table for people throughout the country. I ask the Minister to focus, under the two parts of her portfolio, on kick-starting rural economies and regional development. There are several large employers who are letting people go. If we look back to 2010, it was the agricultural sector that kept a flag flying when a lot of flags were at half mast or were down altogether. I know the Government is borrowing moneys to cover all the things that need to be done. It is the right thing to do because we need to keep the ship sailing. I think all boats will lift throughout Europe, although it may take a year or two to happen. We must keep our boat afloat and ensure we keep people employed as much as possible.

The 2020 CLÁR programme will be opening soon under the Minister's remit. We are hearing that fewer projects will be included under the scheme in each county. I would like clarification on that. These are projects that support a range of initiatives, including community safety measures and other measures such as the provision of walkways and supports for children with disabilities in schools. The programme is important because, first, it improves community safety and, second, it gives work to small operators in different towns and villages. All the different funding streams are very welcome - I want to be very clear about that - but let us not see initiatives like this in rural areas collapsing because money is being pumped into X, Y and Z. If we need to borrow an extra few euro to make sure these people are not forgotten, we should do so.

The Minister is from a rural area and has travelled all over the country. She has seen the amount of work voluntary groups do in communities. The people who run them take a bottom-up approach, filling out the forms late at night and going around every weekend or every night picking up the litter and doing other things to make their community more attractive for the people who live there and the people who visit it on holiday. This year we are seeing Irish people who will not be going to foreign lands taking holidays in different part of our own country. Some of them might do so again next year because of the scenery and the friendliness of the set-up they find there.

I ask the Minister to take those points on board. We need to knuckle down and make sure the people who took risks with their businesses are respected. They do not know where they are because they were never given any money. For the pubs and the sectors that have not opened yet, the year is pushing on. We had three months or so of talks with the banks but there was little benefit for the people in those sectors who have invested a huge amount of money, whether in public houses or other types of businesses that are still not open. A word in the ear of the banks is needed once more because those people's income is going to be totally different from what it was last year or the year before. We must make sure they are given a kick-start. The jump leads must be got ready to get them going the minute things open up again.

The more people we keep employed in this country, the better chance we have of bringing in more taxes and generating an economy. I ask the Minister to take on board the points I have made .

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