Dáil debates

Tuesday, 16 November 2021

Civil Law (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 2021: Motion

 

5:10 pm

Photo of Matt ShanahanMatt Shanahan (Waterford, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister back to the House and I congratulate her on the new addition to her family.

The members of the Regional Group of Independent Deputies will be supporting this Bill. We will all probably remember that not very many years ago, the then Minister, Senator McDowell, suggested when he was in Government that Ireland should have a café culture and society. Little did we know how we were going to arrive there, but here we are. The extension provided for in this Bill is correct in that it is going to help licensing laws. It will also help An Garda Síochána and the local authorities.

The Minister is probably aware of some of the problems that arose when these laws were brought in, particularly in some of our rural towns and villages. Parking spaces were taken up to allow people to extend their licensed areas and were probably accepted as being temporary. It now looks like we are going to be extending that. It will be important for the local authorities to try to engage with other shop owners. Shop owners who are potentially losing parking outside their doors may feel that the walk-in trade is being facilitated primarily for hospitality and not for people to come to their businesses. This is an issue that needs to be looked at.

The Covid restrictions support scheme, CRSS, was very beneficial to a number of people in the hospitality trade because it allowed them to improve their outdoor dining environment. Having said that, they were not planning on continuing it into the winter. Some of these businesses have the potential to put in outdoor heating, etc., to mitigate the effects of our intemperate climate. The question is whether we should be looking at extending possible supports to some of those people again. The current direction of the Covid-19 numbers suggests that it will be far more difficult to bring business indoors in the coming months. How are these businesses to survive? Are they to remain furloughed again? This does not seem entirely possible for many of them. The possibility may need to be there for some form of semi-permanent solutions for some of these businesses. This will have to be done on a case-by-case basis. The local authorities may need to be advised of the attitude they should take to these applications.

Further questions arise regarding our treatment of those with no access to outdoor space. I have been contacted by a number of people in the pub trade who do not have an area where they can operate outdoors. Some of them may have a very small smoking area which cannot be converted into a seated area where people can consume alcohol. Should they have some viability to seek to rent space extraneous to their own premises? Should they be licensed in that way? We will end up looking at that possibility for some bars and restaurants, or else we will have to support them to remain closed the next time this happens.

Issues have been raised in respect of pubs in the context of the PUP and the employment wage subsidy scheme, EWSS, supports, which we are phasing out in April. A person who runs a number of establishments, and has employed a number of long-term staff for five or ten years, has made the point to me that there has been no discrimination, in terms of the PUP, between a person who had been working for a month or two and a person who had been in longer term employment. The same issue arose with the EWSS. These businesses are looking for some extension to supports for people who had been in their employment for more than two or three years. These are skilled people, some of whom are chefs, bar managers and staff, and are not easily replaced. If one has a small business with a number of key people and if one cannot hang on to them when one opens up again, it will have a very drastic impact on one’s business for quite a while. I ask the Minister to look at this.

The Minister is well aware that we will need to reconsider the regulations that cover the idea of outdoor dining. If changes are to be made with regard to hand hygiene, masks, spacing, air filtration, rapid testing and all of that, we need to advise hospitality of those changes over the next while, particularly in light of today’s announcement.

The only other thing I would say to the Minister is in respect of the Garda presence. As she is well aware, we encountered issues with antisocial behaviour when outdoor areas were being licensed, in that people were able to buy alcohol, take it further down the street and consume it there. I am sure the vintners are very keen to ensure that is not repeated and everybody is supported. We might need better co-ordination between the vintners, An Garda Síochána and the local authorities.

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