Matt Shanahan (Waterford, Independent) | Oireachtas source

The CRSS was designed to bring some certainty to businesses in these uncertain times. For those businesses that have applied and qualified for the CRSS, it has obviously proved a valuable lifeline. It must be stated, however, that tying eligibility to apply to the scheme to the operation of a business premises has excluded many SMEs and service sector businesses. Many have great difficulty in accessing other forms of Government support outside of wage supports, which are obviously not fully applicable if a business is closed. Significant service businesses have been developed through great entrepreneurship and reflect the dynamic innovation we will be looking for post Covid. I can think of catering companies, event managers, sound engineers and many other privately and self-employed for whom the CRSS payment is a closed avenue in the context of grant support.

I ask the Minister to consider the many private small and medium business owners who have leasing and finance arrangements in place and those with rent and capital loan repayments for which they are receiving no support. For these people, the decision is to either delve into hard-earned savings or take on additional debt. This is the only way they are technically surviving in hope of a restoration of business demand.

I mentioned certainty. That is one thing Government can probably not fully guarantee. It must signal, however, some extension of existing moneys and additional supports to cover the various business sectors I mentioned and many more of these businesses left without support. There is a real challenge now for many owners in deciding whether to try to struggle on or call it a day. Without adequate support measures being put in place, many of these business owners and their furloughed staff will end up on the live register and become a hard and extended liability on the public purse. It is a well-known fact that it is easier to support an existing job than to spend money trying to create a new one. I urge the Minister, the Government and the Revenue Commissioners to consider further their initiatives to support private sector workers.

At some point, we hope to exit this Covid nightmare and we will need the resilient businesses we have supported to be ready again create economic growth and wealth. The Government and the Revenue Commissioners need to listen to a far greater degree to the pleas of business owners and sole traders who have carried more than their fair share of tax burdens over many years. The implications of ignoring them will be a further social and economic cost this State does not have to create.

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