Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

When the legislation relating to the CRSS was passed by the Houses, I argued as forcefully as I could that it was unfair on people who did not have a premises, whose premises might be, for example, their taxi or van or whose livelihoods involved overheads in terms of loans or rents on premises that are not public-facing, such as musicians, people who work in the arts and many others who operate small businesses. Those businesses and their employees have been devastated, most of them, particularly regarding taxi drivers, musicians and many others, far more than the 25% threshold which allows businesses with a public-facing premises to get the CRSS. One only has to go out onto the streets to see the situation for taxi drivers at the moment. Their ability to earn an income is down 70% or 80%. They have car repayments, insurance costs and other ongoing overheads, yet they are excluded. There is no justice to this. It is completely unfair. They need help.

The vast majority of taxi drivers have also been excluded from the €1,000 restart grant because people have to sign off the PUP in order get that grant. A person cannot sign off the PUP at the moment with any hope of earning even a fraction of what he or she would normally earn for the obvious reason that people are not on the street because of Covid restrictions, and rightly so. Why are taxi drivers being excluded? They still have to carry the costs to which I refer. The position is similar for people in music and the arts, and it is completely unfair. It is precisely some of those who have been worst hit who are not included. In the case of musicians and artists, they have been shut down completely since the beginning of the pandemic, yet many of them are excluded from these schemes. It is not fair.

I support Deputy Doherty's amendment. These points were put to the Minister forcefully when the legislation was pushed through and I do not know why he is ignoring them. Also in the context of taxi drivers, the electric vehicle grant is very limited in terms of who it is available to. A car has to reach its ten-year expiry date in order for the owner to access this grant, which means that the vast majority of taxi drivers will also be excluded from that grant. At every level, taxi drivers are being denied supports because their cars are their premises and their means of business, even though they have been more adversely affected than many of those who are availing of scheme and who are rightly getting paid. I do not see why the Minister would not extend it to taxi drivers or to musicians, people in event-related areas, the arts and so on. I appeal to him to do so.

Some of the support given out to bigger businesses and the willingness of the Government to give this support contrasts sharply with the way it treats PAYE workers, who will now receive tax bills even though the wage subsidy scheme limited the amount by which employers could top up workers' pay to the net amount. The limit the Minister imposed in respect of the wage subsidy scheme means that people have taken a pay cut and that they are going to be taxed subsequently on it. That is completely unfair.

Finally, I will say a word on the wealth that dare not speak its name. Oxfam published a report earlier this week which shows that Ireland's billionaires have increased their wealth by €3.3 billion during the pandemic. Rather than exclude people who really need support from schemes, could we not impose a little bit of tax on the billionaires who have done well out of Covid in order to assist some of the workers and sectors which have been absolutely hammered by the public health restrictions?

See this speech in context