Mattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I do not know if the Minister does value them. He says that, but the scheme has to be tweaked because there is a big cohort of people in this situation.

The Minister said it takes time from an announcement made in the budget. The budget speech is hardly over before his colleagues go around the country saying this or that scheme has been announced before any legislation is in place to deal with it. The Government cannot have it every way. It cannot advertise that everything is rosy. Everything is not rosy in business. The Government has added a huge cost to that with the carbon and fuel taxes, putting back in place the rebates that had been given back, as well as the additional sick days, bank holidays and parental leave days. It is not that they are not lovely announcements but they are crippling small businesses.

The Minister knows that better than I do. He is living in the real world. I appreciate he is a man on the ground. It is fine to make these announcements on the minimum wage but it all adds to the pressure at a time of severe crisis in business. There are severe issues with costs, including injury costs, electricity and everything else. We need to be more understanding with a scheme like this. There will always be issues that need to be tweaked. There should be a review after three months, rather than waiting a year or a year and a month or two months to look back on it. We need to look at these schemes and have some sort of a review after three months to see how they are bedding in and whether there are too many roadblocks for the small businesses that need the supports.

See this speech in context