Louise O'Reilly (Dublin Fingal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The Covid-19 pandemic and subsequent public health measures implemented to reduce the spread of this virus have created unprecedented challenges for small and medium enterprises, SMEs, microbusinesses and the workers that they employ. These public health measures have required businesses across several sectors to close or to implement physical distancing measures that have significantly reduced their capacity to operate. This has had a negative effect on consumption and their trading opportunities. The subsequent losses experienced by SMEs threaten their survival.

Employing more than 1 million people, with extensive linkages throughout the domestic supply chain, the survival of our small to medium enterprises is crucial to getting people back to work and will play a central role in any recovery that might follow. Put simply, without a recovery for small to medium enterprises and family businesses, there will be no real recovery. Investing in SMEs and microbusinesses to rescue jobs and protect our communities is a priority for Sinn Féin but equally important is delivering on workers' rights. The economic recovery from Covid-19 cannot be built on the back of low pay and precarious work, nor on the exploitation of workers. Some of the most negatively impacted sectors of our economy are those with the lowest pay and worst conditions.

The recovery for those affected sectors cannot be a simple reconstitution of the past. This means that from now on, the State must play a central role in supporting our microbusinesses, our SME sector and our family-run businesses and the State and business must also play a central role in delivering on workers' rights, decent jobs and decent pay. IBEC reinforced this today in its submission for budget 2021, stating "The goal of measures introduced to promote economic recovery should not be simply a return to business as usual but rather should be taken as an opportunity to improve quality of life in Ireland." Many other groups have said this since the onset of this crisis, including the trade union movement, the community and voluntary sector, those in the health service and many more. Sinn Féin believes that the central plank of the economic recovery from the Covid-19 crisis must be a real commitment to our microbusinesses, SME sector and family businesses, as well as a steadfast commitment to workers' rights embedded in legislation and the creation of decent jobs with decent pay and conditions. The State must protect workers and support businesses, which should be taken as a given. An analysis of the current situation for workers, SMEs and the broader economy has shown that the vast majority of the Government's actions have been too little, too late, or more often than not, both. My colleague, Deputy Doherty, will delve into this in detail in a few minutes.

The experience of the last financial crisis left most SMEs and microbusinesses unwilling to take on additional external debt through loans. They pleaded with the Government for injections of liquidity through grants. Instead of listening to the sector, the Government proposed a 4:1 debt:grant ratio in the July stimulus, with a focus on loans rather than grant aid. The paltry and often inaccessible nature of some of these grants has meant that many businesses are still in an extremely perilous position. I was speaking with a businessperson in Kildare and have written to the Tánaiste about this person. He informed me that phase 1 of the restart grant scheme had its closure date changed and that meant that countless businesses that had applied for or were waiting to apply for grants lost out. Instead of being entitled to and receiving the restart grant and the restart grant plus, he instead only qualifies for one. That does not seem fair or right.

What supports are there for wet pubs, the live entertainment sector and artists? All of these sectors were essentially ignored. The wet pubs were essentially ignored. One pub worker I spoke to at the weekend said that they were kicked around by the Government. Their reopening has been put back countless times. Instead of coming up with a plan for these pubs to reopen in a safe and secure manner with set guidelines and sanctions, they were ignored. I know many have correctly stated that this particularly penalised rural areas and rural pubs, but it also penalised many pubs in urban working class areas that do not have recourse to kitchen and cooking facilities. Additional supports for workers in these businesses when they reopened were continuously put back. They did not get a thing. Instead of engaging meaningfully with affected sectors and working to protect the jobs, livelihoods and businesses, the main supports for those affected, the pandemic unemployment payment and the temporary wage subsidy scheme, have been put back. Such moves threaten to undermine investment in these affected sectors since the beginning of the crisis. The State either ensures that the workers in these sectors are protected through wage supports and that the businesses are helped through grant aid or help with debt, or jobs will be lost and businesses will fold.

We have seen in the north of England and Scotland how communities were destroyed through the Thatcher years because of the failure of the state to invest in communities, protect businesses and protect jobs. The failure has cost demonstrably more in the long run through funding for social protection measures and the destruction wrought on these communities. We know that leveraging through debt is often necessary for growth. That principle applies in our current circumstances. We need to borrow and invest in workers, jobs and small businesses to stabilise them and help them grow. This is the only way forward.

We can and should use this period to reset the economy and rectify the mistakes of the past. While Covid-19 has created instability in our economy, it has also laid bare an insecure economic base that is centred on low wages, low growth and low productivity. If we are to create a truly progressive economy and a happy society, we need to have substantial economic change. Unfortunately after the last economic crash, the conservative political parties and their corporate affiliates came together to ensure that the old economic order, which was responsible for the most catastrophic domestic elements of the crash, was repaired and put back together the same as before.

In a post-Covid-19 world, we cannot go back to business as usual and have a reconstitution of the economy as it was. We need to propose and advocate for how we can build a robust, socialist, progressive, sustainable and green economy. We must eradicate precarious low wage work, which has been a feature of our economy, and we need to see a serious move towards a living wage. This cannot be done in a vacuum. There most be a whole-of-Government response to tackle the high cost of housing, insurance, education and the crippling cost of living.

Sinn Féin is committed, as the lead party in Opposition in the Dáil, to be constructive and robust. We will work with all parties and all political groupings to support workers' rights and micro, small, medium and family businesses.

When it comes to protecting jobs and workers, the Covid-19 global health emergency has put a necessary focus on the need for high standards of health and safety at work. In a time of a global pandemic, access to paid sick leave becomes an important instrument of public health. This State remains one of the few in Europe not to have paid sick leave for all workers. When we talk about what workers want and need, then give them a round of applause and a pat on the back, we have to think about what would be a meaningful legacy after what was done to some workers during this crisis. A really meaningful legacy for those workers would be a State-backed sick pay scheme that would ensure that they could take time off from work. I am not naive enough to believe that this could be done overnight. I know it cannot simply be done with a flick of a switch. I know it would require much detailed consultation.

I know the difference between a sound bite and a decent sick pay scheme. What I am saying to the Tánaiste is that we need to use this time to build that into the system. It is going to take some time. That is why Sinn Féin has proposed an extension to the force majeurescheme to ensure that people who cannot be in work have the capacity not to be in work and not to lose out in terms of money because of Covid, but also that we use this time to build a decent State-backed sick pay scheme which will bring us into line with the rest of Europe. Many employers went above and beyond to save their businesses and protect the jobs of their staff. Some employers and businesses saw this as cover for poor treatment of their workforce. The behaviour of Debenhams is one such example. The Tánaiste and I have spoken about this previously. We know about the need to immediately implement the Duffy Cahill report immediately. Successive Governments have failed to learn the lesson from Clerys, TalkTalk, the Paris Bakery, La Senza and the myriad others. We know them all and can rhyme them all off.

The Tánaiste has a proposal on his desk from the Irish Congress of Trade Unions. It is backed by the workers in Debenhams and Mandate Trade Union. I ask him to give it serious consideration, not over the course of months as the Minister of State, Deputy English, has said but over the course of the next couple of weeks. They have put a lot of effort into this proposal. It reflects the Duffy Cahill report. It is not by any manner or means radical. It is something that is done in other countries. It would make a real and meaningful difference in the lives of those workers and would ensure we do not keep coming back to the same place again, to the same problems and issues, and to the same shrug of the shoulders and "let us not let this happen again." We need to make sure when we say we do not want it to happen again that we actually put measures in place to ensure it cannot. As a State, we need to move towards a much more robust and progressive economic base. We have to move towards a recovery that is built on the back of decent pay and decent work, and we have to fix that which has been exposed by this pandemic.

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