Barry Ward (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael)

I acknowledge what the Government has done. These supports are important. We are talking about small businesses that employ an enormous number of people throughout the country but are not massively profitable and, therefore, are vulnerable when these grants are not given to them. The grants are important to ensure their viability.

Will the Minister of State do two things in particular? I acknowledge what he said about the appeal process coming along and we have spoken about this before. I welcome that. It is timely, and the more timely it is, the better. I hear what the Minister of State has said about the timeline, but if we could speed that up and have it in place by the autumn for businesses, it would make a considerable difference to local economies around the country. These businesses are the lifeblood of our economy. They need our support. The Government wants to support them, but I would like to see them getting what they are entitled to sooner rather than later.

If there is a circumstance where a business got ICOB 1 and was denied ICOB 2 or did not get ICOB 1 and, therefore, was not entitled to ICOB 2, that needs to be rectified. We cannot leave any business in the lurch because of a simple clerical error that was made at local level. Let us try to fix this.

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