Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The Deputy and I have met businesses that have been particularly badly impacted in Midleton together. If there are other individual schemes we can learn lessons from or if people feel they have been unfairly treated, I would like to hear about them because I would like to talk to the Red Cross about that. The Red Cross has done a great job on the whole. We are very reliant on it. Some have suggested that we should be doing this in-house through some of the agencies, Enterprise Ireland, the local enterprise offices and so on but I believe the Red Cross has, this time round, proven itself to be good at this and I want to continue to build on that relationship. It has been very helpful and responsive but that does not mean we cannot always try to improve. If there are cases of businesses the Deputy feels have been unfairly treated, I would like to hear about them.

There are dangers with an appeals mechanism when an agency like the Red Cross is making decisions on the basis of set criteria and on a humanitarian basis. I do not want to delay payments. I am not giving a definitive "No" to the suggestion but I want to keep this process as simple as possible. This is humanitarian assistance.

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