Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

In my contribution I acknowledged the difficulty and challenge of designing the scheme and the fact that we will always find people marginally outside. I believe there is possibly a way if we ask Revenue to look at this in terms of the criteria. We will always find grey areas. If a beautician is going to open, it is likely that it is the business of a beautician and there is no other part of the business that is restricted. The same applies to a hairdresser or retail store. However, there is a unique situation with pubs because of gastropubs and wet pubs, as we are calling them. We have split the business into two. I imagine there is a willingness to address this because the intention behind the scheme is to help businesses through this period; that is why we support it. I imagine there is some way Revenue and the Minister and his officials can come up with criteria. For example, let us imagine a business is still under restrictions and the wet pub accounts for 75% of the turnover. Then if it remains closed, it may be deemed to be under restrictions. There are ways to do that. These cases are not great in number. I imagine most people are trying to stay open. As we discussed, some people try to find elaborate ways to be deemed a gastropub. This is the opposite, in that in these cases they want to remain closed. They may believe they are restricted from opening as wet pubs. Is the Minister willing to talk to his officials in Revenue to look at something like this? Deputy Ó Laoghaire has given an example where 93% of the turnover comes from the wet pub, which is deemed to be closed under the restrictions. That business would be, for all intents and purposes, still a restricted business and therefore able to access the CRSS. The scenario that my colleague, Brian Carr, has relayed to me is similar and involves several pubs in Donegal. I would appreciate if the Minister would give a commitment to re-look at this. In my view, this does not require further legislative change because we know this is under the management of the Revenue Commissioners and they have the latitude to bring in guidance of this nature if they deem it necessary.

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