Jennifer Carroll MacNeill (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

We cannot have it both ways, but we can have a bit of balance. I have seen people outdoors all over my constituency in small groups. I thank Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council for the effort it has made to put in appropriate outdoor seating, to change the streetscape to accommodate restaurants to make it easier to have people outside in a structured way when they reopen and to put in place public facilities such as toilets and bins. That has made a big difference. I hope to see people out and about in as safe and balanced a way as possible.

I wish to make three points as well. I thank the Government for the extension to the EWSS and the development of the CRSS. We called for that and we asked the Government to provide certainty to business, which it did back in March. It has done it again today and that is so important. I thank the Government in particular for the introduction of the business resumption support scheme. A number of very niche groups, for example, catering companies, got stuck between the CRSS and the EWSS in terms of having a rateable premises, but not being eligible for CRSS because they did not have a footfall that was cut off. I think of two such companies in my area in particular which were really struggling. I lobbied very intensively in particular the Minister for Finance, Deputy Donohoe, and the Tánaiste and Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment, Deputy Varadkar, to the point of being really annoying about it. I am so thankful to them because the decisions the Government has made are the difference being those businesses continuing to be viable and closing. They were viable businesses and they have managed to get through the pandemic and now they need support to keep going.

I wish to raise a related issue, but it is not from the perspective of the Minister for Finance. I was listening to colleagues, in particular Deputy Brendan Smith, who spoke about his constituency being strong on social supports such as schools and playing facilities, among others. Mine is slightly inverted, in that the number in employment is strong but we lack space, which continues to create pressure on space in communities for schools and playing facilities. It is just as important that we try to be imaginative and creative in how we plan our area. There is a plan, for example, to put playgrounds on the roofs of schools, as we are trying to do in Dún Laoghaire, and to provide other facilities to make sure that we get the best sort of community. Space is finite and we must develop it intelligently and well.

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