Neale Richmond (Dublin Rathdown, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I greatly welcome this opportunity to respond to a salient and timely Topical Issue from Deputy MacSharry. I am grateful to the Deputy for giving me this opportunity to lay out a few things on my mind and, indeed, on the Government's mind as we approach the budget next Tuesday.

As the Deputy will be aware, I tour the country every week visiting businesses in every county, and these are the concerns that are raised in businesses of all sizes. It can be the retail sector, which is the largest private sector employer in the State or the owner of an SME, which employ in excess of 75% of people in the State.

The costs are mounting. I do not need to list the measures that the Government is introducing regarding increasing the minimum wage, moving towards a living wage and much else. These are well signalled and we will not be changing these plans.

The Low Pay Commission report has been received by Government. I am awaiting that decision to be made by the Cabinet not only regarding the recommendations for a minimum wage but also regarding the sub-minimum rates of the minimum wage, which I believe have been flagged in Private Members' business by the Cathaoirleach Gníomhach, Deputy Quinlivan's party as well as the Labour Party. Throughout this, the Government is well aware these much-needed changes to employment law and the employment area in the State come at a serious cost, not for the Government per sebut for the businesses that have to implement them. We acknowledge that the costs for businesses more generally have gone up exponentially over the past couple of years, and not only due to inflation, be it rising food inflation, which thankfully is starting to come down, or rising energy costs, which have been coming down.

The Deputy referred saliently to the temporary business energy support scheme, TBESS, in terms of the supports given to businesses over the past year. More than 30,000 businesses have applied for this scheme. Businesses with ten to 50 employees were the most common group to avail of this. In Sligo alone, the Deputy will be aware that 767 claims were received and processed for the TBESS scheme in the past calendar year, with more than €2 million paid to businesses in the county. This scheme has been expanded in recent months.

The new development of the business users support scheme is for those businesses, not necessarily in my constituency but probably more widely, which use kerosene, with a minimum payment of €500 towards their increased kerosene costs. This follows on from temporary reductions in VAT on electricity and gas and much else, as well as the general significant supports that are available through Enterprise Ireland or local enterprise offices. I do not need to go through the individual counties' returns.

The Deputy mentioned the deposit return scheme that is due to come on board. This is something that was raised by Mr. Finbarr Filan, a retailer in the Deputy's own county. The Deputy knows him well. A good guy, a stand-up guy and a pillar of his community, Mr. Filan runs an excellent supermarket in Sligo and has raised the fact the smaller retail stores similar to his own and probably a little bit smaller are not able to avail of grant aid. That is certainly a serious ask I am making, that we are able to expand that not just to the large multiples or retailers but to all sides. We need that scheme to work, as the Deputy correctly says, because it is not just an environmental matter. I do not know how many times over the past two decades I have been to conferences and meetings where we have talked about deposit return schemes and following continental examples. We are now making it a reality, but we appreciate the cost of that reality needs to be met by Government as well as by the retailers.

The closing point I will leave the Deputy with is that, in relation to the new rights and the changes to the minimum wage that have happened, are happening and are signposted to happen, one of the main things the Government is undertaking through my own Department and the Department of Social Protection, which is my other Department, is a serious review of how those costs are impacting businesses and what can be done. We hope to have that report published in December, and what will then follow is where the Government needs to step up to meet the needs of businesses to make sure these changes can be implemented properly, because they will be implemented.

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