Holly Cairns (Cork South West, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

I appreciate all those schemes and am sure businesses will look into them but they are more long-term solutions. Many small businesses cannot go on at the moment. They need more immediate solutions given rising energy bills, operating costs, insurance, rates, food and the list goes on.The Minister knows shops, cafés and many other local enterprises are really fearful of the winter. Just as we are getting over the impact of the pandemic they face inflationary pressures, especially with energy prices.

I have so many examples I can give and think everybody does but I am going to go with examples from Bantry as I am aware it is a town the Minister is familiar with. Staff in Wharton's Fish and Chips were in the local newspaper showing their energy price hikes. The Stuffed Olive was on social media today with its bill and the owners of Organico, the health store and bakery, said in another newspaper their electricity bills went up 25% to 30% last year and have gone up 100% this year. To really emphasise where people are at, one of the proprietors summed it up by saying:

I don’t see how we can trade out of a situation where the cost of everything is increasing but the turnover is not. It’s going to close down businesses in the short-term.

What does the Minister say to her? I was speaking to a group who were saying the price of a pound of butter has gone up from €2.70 to €3.90.

See this speech in context