Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Since this dreadful disease arrived in our country, the Government has: brought in the temporary wage subsidy scheme, which we then replaced with the employment wage subsidy scheme; reduced the standard rate of VAT to support retailers; reduced the VAT rate for the hospitality sector in order to support it; brought in a Covid restrictions support scheme to support businesses that are closed due to public health guidance; launched restart grants to support businesses that need help to reopen; warehoused tax liabilities through the Revenue Commissioners; reduced the rate of interest taxpayers will have to pay on outstanding debt; increased capital spending in our economy at exactly the time when the economy needed demand to be stimulated; and brought in the pandemic unemployment payment to ensure that those who most needed help were able to get it when they lost their jobs due to the arrival of the pandemic and the change in public health guidance. That is the track record of the Government in supporting employers, enterprise and jobs at a time when our country most needed help. We were able to do these things because of actions taken by the European Central Bank combined with the national finances having been in good condition coming into this crisis. No Government in the history of this country has ever rolled out a set of supports at a time of challenge such as that which this Government and the one that preceded it have rolled out.

I will return to the substantive point raised by Deputy Ó Laoghaire. He referred to a specific pub, which Deputy Doherty also touched on. The challenge I face in developing schemes to support employers is that there will always be employers and businesses that fall just outside the criteria. There will always be businesses that are just a bit different from the kind of business that falls inside a scheme such as the Covid restrictions support scheme. For example, the criteria for access to the Covid scheme include a requirement that the business is closed due to public health guidance. If we changed that requirement and allowed businesses that could open but decided to stay closed to access the CRSS, the next question I would face would be: what about all the businesses that opened and lost access to the scheme?

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