Ruairi Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

An awful lot has been said. We welcome some parts of these proposals. Obviously, we need to get as much stimulus as possible into the economy, which has been absolutely hammered. As has already been said by many previous speakers, it is very difficult to look at a stimulus programme while dealing with reduced pandemic unemployment payments. The pandemic unemployment payment and the temporary wage subsidy scheme were spoken about initially as necessities to facilitate people to make the best decisions with regard to health options. The deciding factor was that these schemes would also provide a stimulus in the economy and ensure people could pay bills such as rent. They would put money into local shops and butchers and other businesses that were still open and needed to operate. In some sense, we are speaking about a stimulus programme at the same time as we are pursuing austerity and regressive policies.

It has been stated that the stay and spend scheme is a yellow pack version of Sinn Féin's voucher scheme to give everybody a voucher. That scheme could have easily been delivered through Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection offices or An Post and it would have allowed all people to go out and spend, be it on a meal or a short stay somewhere. We would have been able to give the tourism and hospitality sector, which has been absolutely hammered, a real stimulus and lift. It would have secured jobs and businesses. Instead, we are discussing a scenario in which people who have money and can afford to spend will spend, and those who are more organised will take a photograph of their receipts and get a return on them a year later. Not many people are going to go for a meal or are going to take a trip and so forth on the basis of a pay off they may get a year later. In that sense I fail to see how it will not be an absolute failure.

We welcome the reduction in VAT from 23% to 21%. However, as has been said by other Members, the failure in this regard relates to the hospitality sector. I have spoken about the damage that has been done and the dangers that lie ahead for businesses. We could have considered a reduction in VAT from 13.5% to 9%, which would have been a real stimulus. It was a lost opportunity and the Government must examine it. I accept that this is only one of the many steps in the stimulus programmes, but we must constantly recheck. Like everybody else, we are pointing out some of the flaws and the Government will discover them itself. At that point it will have to follow the feedback loop and improve the system to ensure we secure as many jobs and businesses as possible.

We also welcome the TWSS, even it becoming the EWSS, and the fact that there will be continuity of financing for businesses to maintain jobs. There are weaknesses in the fact that it does not secure low-paid workers to the same degree. We believe a little tweaking is necessary in that regard.

The help-to-buy scheme has major problems. As has often been the case previously, this may just be moneys that end up with developers as an unintended consequence. If the Government is determined to follow through on this, it will have to check this soon. We knew long before the election that housing is a major problem across the State. The only way to deal with it is through the State taking an active part in building affordable housing, affordable cost rental and public housing on public lands.

I welcome some of the measures relating to the self-employed such as enhanced and accelerated tax relief for people who may have lost money. This is very necessary. These people had profitable operations or businesses and they have suffered badly during this period. We must give them the necessary supports, but we must also ensure a large quotient of people fall into this bracket because my fear is that there is a large number of such people. We have already heard about people who work not only in the tourism sector but also in arts and entertainment. We must facilitate them with continued payments which are not necessarily cut and which allow them to conduct occasional gigs and the like, although they will have limited options in that regard.

We just need to tweak some of the positives in this Bill and remove the negatives.

See this speech in context