Christopher O'Sullivan (Cork South West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Bill and congratulate the two Ministers on the monumental and significant budget 2021. The Minister of State, Deputy Fleming, played his part as well and I thank him for attending. That said, I wish to discuss elements of the Bill and the budget that need tweaking.

The Bill will legislate for the Covid restrictions support scheme, CRSS. A brilliant scheme, it has already been broadly welcomed by businesses. It will provide a business with up to as much as €5,000 per week. However, be it the restart scheme, the restart plus scheme or the CRSS, the same businesses are falling through the cracks.

I wish to speak on behalf of sound engineers and lighting engineers. They constitute one of the business sectors most impacted by the restrictions. I have spoken to industry representatives. These engineers are struggling and many are fearful that they will not see past the lockdown and the end of this recession. To qualify for the CRSS, a person has to have a fixed premises. As can be imagined, not all sound and lighting engineers have such. Some have an element of warehousing and pay rates on it, but that is not considered a premises under the scheme. This needs to be fixed. These are the people who are involved in many of our favourite productions nationally, be they festivals, television productions or so on. We will need sound and lighting engineers after the pandemic.

We need to expedite payments under the CRSS. My understanding is that it will be the end of November before the first payments are made, but they need to happen earlier because businesses are screaming out for that funding.

The VAT reduction has been broadly welcomed by the tourism industry. Along with other measures taken in respect of tourism, it is a major step. However, it will only be effective for businesses that are in a position to reopen and trade. Although all of this is pending figures, it is important that we prepare now for the end of level 5 restrictions. Thankfully, the figures are going the right way and the R number is reducing, so we must prepare for level 3 restrictions come the start of December. We cannot permit a situation where restaurants and pubs that serve food will have to rely solely on outdoor dining. It would not be practical in the middle of winter. It would not be an option. I ask that the Minister of State bring the message to the Cabinet that we should consider how to tweak the level 3 restrictions to allow some element of indoor dining, perhaps with a few extra measures in place. It will be vital if the hospitality sector is to avail of the VAT reduction.

I wish to make a case for the funding of voluntary organisations. The Irish Red Cross is one of the most important such organisations. In my home town of Clonakilty, the Irish Red Cross is on standby at every festival, event, parade and race meeting. It provides a vital service, but it relies heavily on the fees it is paid for those events. With the events not happening, the income of our local Irish Red Cross has been decimated. We need to step in and bail out the Irish Red Cross. In my town, it might have to vacate its premises because of funding issues. It also has to maintain vehicles. An intervention is necessary so that the likes of the Irish Red Cross in Clonakilty can survive and see out the pandemic.

The best way for the carbon tax to lessen the impact on those with lower incomes is through social welfare, as is being done in the budget, but also through the warmer homes scheme. There are still considerable delays in rolling it out and allowing people to access its financing. We need to sort that out straight away.

I thank the Government for introducing this Bill.

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