Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

That is a €55 million scheme that will be administered by the Minister for Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media, Deputy Catherine Martin. She and I are working closely together on tourism and hospitality issues because there is such an overlap between enterprise, employment, tourism and hospitality. I will certainly bring that matter to her attention but I cannot make a commitment here.

The Department of Finance and I are working on a modification to the Covid restrictions support scheme, CRSS, or indeed on a new scheme that will help out what I call "orphan companies" that have fallen between the stools and do not qualify for CRSS or one of the other specific sectoral support schemes that have been put in place along the way.

I had a quick look at the ESRI report this morning and it is interesting reading. It shows that Ireland's economy will grow this year, which people will be surprised to hear, given the pandemic. We will be one of few countries in the world where the economy may well grow this year. That is down to the strength of our multinational corporations and our commitment to international trade. I think those who doubt the benefit of having multinational corporations here, the policies we have out in place to attract them and our commitment to international trade really need to reconsider their positions. We would be in a worse position than we are now had it not been for all of that.

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