Michael Collins (Cork South-West, Independent Ireland Party)

I thank the Taoiseach. As he will know from his holidays in west Cork or elsewhere, when there is a huge influx of people, there is a bonus from that but the problem is that the bonus does not last. If you go past a café today, there might be two or three people sitting outside it. It is during the busier times that they make their little bit of profit. The proof is in the experience of the business person I mentioned earlier, who opened a café in January and had to wait until the end of July to get an income for himself. That says it all. He spent the previous seven months earning nothing but paying staff, rates and everything. He obviously had a dream that this business would last and survive, but his dream is turning into a nightmare.

As I said earlier, 600 of these businesses went last year and another 150 went in the first three months of this year. If they are employing 15 people on average, it means that up to 11,250 people have lost their jobs, with thousands more jobs to go if the Government does not step in. Next week, this Government has a chance to drop the VAT rate immediately. Will the Taoiseach tell us if this will happen on the day the budget is announced? If he is going to tell us he is kicking the can down the road, it will lead to hundreds and hundreds more closures.

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