Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister for the reply. It is a good scheme and I am glad that 3,955 Clare businesses will benefit.

The whole way of calculating and working out who will get what needs a little more thought, because this is based on the square footage of the floor space. It is based on the rate space. I found during the Covid period that there was real agility in the Government in identifying what businesses were suffering most and how best to support them. A model like that could be looked at once more. A rate space is just a matter of how much floor space a business takes up, but there are other metrics. I think the Revenue Commissioners could help in that regard.

I recently met with RGDATA, which represents many small- and medium-sized enterprises and retailers. They told me that the increase in cost per employee has been €4,200 per annum for business owners. I recently met with the owner of a very small supermarket in Clare. They have 15 employees. They have additional costs each year of €60,000 owing to the increased national minimum wage, the additional bank holiday, the additional statutory sick leave and auto-enrolment. It is crippling them. I think we need a little more than this scheme to ensure these businesses stay afloat.

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