Verona Murphy (Wexford, Independent) | Oireachtas source

The civil servants who wrote that speech actually received a wage increase of 10.5% in the last few weeks. Their increase is probably more than a lot of the SMEs I am representing here today will achieve in profits - for the courage and conviction of opening up a business in small parts of rural Ireland. Small businesses employ people who can fit in a job for a few hours in their working life. It is not good enough that we do not have a senior Minister here. I am sorry the Minister of State, Deputy Rabbitte, has been thrown in at the deep end to read a speech of which she had no knowledge at the start. We are representing every region and rural part of Ireland here today, as well as the urban centres, which are struggling. It is not good enough that the Government is playing politics. We have the Fine Gael leader and Taoiseach, Leo Varadkar, saying that of course we can operate a split system of VAT, but it falls to the Fianna Fáil Minister, Michael McGrath, to do so. The Government should not play politics with people who are struggling.

The Minister of State has nodded her head all morning at what we are saying. I concur with all my colleagues, but she will vote against this tonight. She will vote with her party, because that is what happens when we elect party politicians in this country. They are elected by their constituents - the struggling SMEs, the hospitality sector, hairdressers and beauticians, but what do they do when they come up here? They forget about their constituents. They vote with their party, no matter how detrimental it is. The two individuals beside the Minister of State get their 10% increase, and so does she and so do I. I do not want it.

I want the Government to do its job. I want it to support SMEs and reduce the VAT rate because what it is doing currently is making oligarchs out of all those who have decided to buy up every derelict building in the country to turn it into an IPAS centre and be paid millions for doing so. The Government has not supported the nursing homes in the same way. They are closing in order to try to obtain that oligarch money the Government is providing. The Government has ruined the accommodation sector in rural Ireland, which supports these SMEs. In addition, I am getting letters from people with Airbnbs who feel that the policies the Government is bringing in through regulation will put them out of business. It is trying to force them to become long-term rental properties for which they are not suitable. If nothing else, I ask the Minister of State to take that back to the Cabinet and her Government colleagues and tell them that will not work. All they will do is close down the Airbnbs who do support the SMEs, in order for them to be sustainable. They support their neighbours by making a menial living and small profits and all they are asking the Government to do is to keep them viable and sustainable, first, by reducing the VAT rate, which would be fair and, second, by increasing the threshold at which the employer pays PRSI.

Nobody in the Regional Group disagrees with an increase in the minimum wage or with paying a little more benefit when it comes to sick pay, but why level it at the SMEs? Why not use some of the money the Government is gaining from the corporation tax to pay for it itself? Is it because the Government had to raise an extra €500 million for the children's hospital, which was originally to be €250 million. We are now at €2.5 billion, we are years late and the hospital is not in service.

It is unbecoming of anybody to sit in government on that side of the House and tell SMEs they are not worthy of a senior Minister to be present for the debate. I am not denigrating the Minister of State, Deputy Anne Rabbitte, but the senior Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment or the Minister for Finance should have come in here to listen to the people who are representing the constituents who elected them. That is what we are doing on this side of the House. We are working with the people who are struggling in the businesses who provide employment for a little over 99% of the working people in Ireland. I am very aggrieved for them today.

I extend my best wishes to Deputy Kehoe, who is not going to run in the next election, but after his statement yesterday on local radio in Wexford I do not think there will be too many in tears. He said this requires a budget - this menial measure of reducing the VAT rate by 50% - because that is what the Minister increased it by when he put it up. He said it had to be done in a budget. He spent 21 years in the House, yet he has not learned that it does not need a budget, because it was done last week with the tax debt warehousing. I ask the Minister of State to seriously consider this and to bring it back to the Government. We do not accept the Government amendment, but on behalf of the SMEs I ask that she would accept this motion.

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