Brendan Griffin (Kerry, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister. I welcome and encourage that engagement with industry and the representative bodies in particular. The Minister is very welcome to come to Kerry at any stage and engage with the operators on the ground. He has been very good in the past in coming to the county and meeting people. They have always been very impressed with him and he has always responded, which is really important and appreciated. It would also be welcome if he could do that throughout the business sector because it is from the ground up that we can really get what is going on at the coalface.

We are where we are with the challenges we have faced over recent years, but there is scope within the overall budgetary parameters to assist the businesses that have fed the economic growth the country has experienced over the past ten-plus years. We need to protect those businesses and, as the economic cycle progresses and perhaps there will be further challenges or downturns, these are the businesses we will need to get us through the difficult times to keep our services funded and the country on the road. We need to support them now, therefore, at this difficult time. Support at the beginning of this Thirty-third Dáil was more than anything I could have expected in the context of the Covid response, and that now needs to be replicated.

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