Brendan Smith (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

With the permission of the House, I will give four minutes of my time to Deputy Sherlock. The Exchequer returns demonstrated very clearly the huge public expenditure that has been necessarily incurred due to the pandemic. There were much-needed and very welcome additional supports for the health sector, social protection and for business, and like previous speakers, I want to see those supports continue. They are necessary to support public health, people who have lost their income and business through a very uncertain time.

In recent weeks in particular, nervousness has increased among the business community and in sectors that had closed down or partially closed down. I refer to people who had hoped to reopen to scale up their businesses again. Our statutory agencies and the Department with responsibility for business must be very conscious of the concerns among the business community, and those supports need to continue.

The substantial additional expenditure for education was very welcome also in ensuring that the 1 million children and young adults got back to education at preschool, primary, post-primary, further education and third levels. We hope to see that continue.

The July jobs stimulus package was necessary and impactive in a number of areas. To take the area of housing, there was additional activity and substantial funding for the voids programme, which is necessary to ensure that houses lying vacant in the council housing stock are brought back to habitable use.

The Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, Deputy Michael McGrath, has stated that budget 2021 will be set in the context of Covid-19 and Brexit. He outlined the necessity, which all of us in this House want to see, to protect and improve services, where possible.

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