Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)
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Ba mhaith liom buíochas a ghabháil leis an Aire Stáit as teacht isteach agus éisteacht liom tráthnóna. At the onset of the Covid-19 crisis, the Government took immediate action and for that I give credit. Very early on, the issue of seasonal workers came to the fore, particularly in those areas of the country and the sectors of the economy that are traditionally seasonal in nature. We can look in particular at hospitality and tourism, where in many parts of the country the season runs from St. Patrick's Day or even Easter in cases through the summer to various points in the autumn, perhaps finishing in late September or Hallowe'en, with some going to Christmas. There are large parts of the industry that do not function for the full length of the year.

In addition, the events industry and other sectors would be in a lull in January or February, as very few festivals take place then and there would not be as many events. Much of the industry in these areas starts on St. Patrick's Day. Under the rules of the temporary wage subsidy scheme, if a person was not employed in January, February and March, there is no entitlement to support through the scheme for workers who had never worked in those months but rather worked in later months of the year and earned their living that way.

As well as a sectoral effect, this has caused a major geographic effect, where a disproportionate piece of the economy in places on the west coast of Ireland depend on this seasonal tourism. These are places like Daingean or Killarney even up the west coast through County Clare, into County Galway through Clifden. Connemara and the islands would be very familiar to the Acting Chairman. We can then go up through County Mayo to Donegal. The reality is that unless immediate action is taken, many of these industries and businesses in the hospitality sectors and all the spin-off enterprise supplying them might not survive. That is not through any fault of their own but through a lack of support.

This afternoon, we debated at length the issue of microfinance. The latter is useful in its own right but which does not fill this gap. For many of these businesses, borrowing money is not a solution. We need to hear that the temporary wage subsidy scheme will first be extended for at least a year for those industries that will not recover for at least that time. It should be available to those who can demonstrate a pattern of seasonal employment every year; in other words, businesses should be eligible for the scheme where they hire people in the spring but do not have them in January, February or March. Within the hospitality sector, we need the cap on the restart grant to be eliminated as this is an equivalent to three and a half bedrooms in a hotel, and no such hotel exists in the country.

My time is short and I hope the Minister of State will be able to tell me that the Government, even at this belated stage, will make an announcement and will not leave these vital industries high and dry. I hope it will not leave us in such a position that when tourism returns, we will find that some of our best assets are no longer functioning.

Damien English (Meath West, Fine Gael)
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I thank the Deputy for raising this matter and the general issue of supports for business in the hospitality sector. He also flagged the matter of seasonal workers, which is certainly on our agenda as well.

As has been referred to by the Taoiseach, the Tánaiste and other Ministers, the programme for Government promises to bring forward a July jobs initiative to support our economy and help restore employment. Our focus is on supporting the viability of businesses and getting people back to work as quickly as possible in all sectors, including the vital hospitality sector. I cannot confirm what will be in that stimulus but it will come in the next couple of weeks. We will certainly enhance the offerings we have had so far as we are very much committed to supporting businesses in restarting and growing through job creation. We had a good and lengthy discussion on that earlier today and last night.

Helping small and medium enterprises is essential, given their pivotal role in the economy and employment. The July stimulus will extend, enhance and add to existing measures, totalling €12 billion in supports for businesses affected by Covid-19 that have already been announced. These measures include direct grants and supports, including the temporary wage subsidy scheme referred to by the Deputy. I am very conscious of the point he is making on seasonal workers and we will certainly focus on it in our work over the next couple of weeks as we bring forward the stimulus package.

There is also a €250 million restart grant fund and the Deputy is seeking changes to it. There are also liquidity supports, such as 0% financing for six months from Microfinance Ireland. This House passed the required legislation for that earlier and I hope it will go through the Seanad tomorrow in order that we can get on with the work relating to the fund. There has been a rates waiver from local authorities and the warehousing of tax liabilities by the Revenue Commissioners with respect to small and medium enterprises.

These supports are predominantly focused on our small and medium enterprises, which have been hit hardest by the Covid-19 pandemic. As stated in the programme for Government, it is planned that the July jobs initiative will set out a path for the future of the temporary wage subsidy scheme. That will deal with the length it will be extended, if it is extended, and also deal with who can access the scheme.

The most important action from the Government was to try to ensure employees were not laid off and they did not lose an all-important link with an employer. Experience demonstrates that maintenance of the link with an employer is critical to the prospects of a person recovering and resuming employment. The temporary wage subsidy scheme achieves this objective but there are issues around this connected with seasonal or part-time workers and so on. These are all being examined.

In addition to the wage subsidy scheme, the Government introduced a new payment, the pandemic unemployment payment, to help individuals who were laid off. These supports and others are now being reviewed in the context of the July jobs stimulus and the economic recovery plan, which will be brought forward around budget time in October. These are key components of the programme for Government and I expect that further announcements will be made in due course. I know Deputy Ó Cuív would like me to do that tonight but it is best that it comes forward in the overall stimulus package in the weeks ahead. The issues mentioned by Deputy Ó Cuív relating to support for temporary seasonal workers are very much part of the considerations for the future of the wage subsidy scheme, and rightly so.

As the public health restrictions are eased, the challenge for the economy, SMEs and all businesses is evolving. Work is ongoing on how best to continue to support employers in the more medium term, including consideration of support for temporary seasonal workers and new hires. Also, I spoke earlier about new start-ups because people might change career during these times.

Since it was introduced in March, more than 65,900 employers have registered with Revenue for the temporary wage subsidy scheme and more than 58,600 employers have availed of the scheme, which is almost one third of all employers from 2019. More than 567,600 jobs have been directly supported over the period and many more indirectly. That is considerable coverage and it is noted that the value of payments made to date is nearly €2 billion.

Changes have also been made to the scheme to allow additional flexibility in the case of lower paid workers to increase the level of subsidy they receive, for workers returning from maternity, paternity and adoptive leave, and for apprentices who were engaged in a period of off-the-job or block release training in February of this year. The update and the need for the wage subsidy scheme will continue to be monitored as the public health restrictions are eased and the economy continues to recover.

My final point is on the restart grant, which was launched on 22 May 2020. The scheme was devised in recognition of the fact that micro and small businesses were particularly vulnerable to the economic effects of Covid-19. To date, there have been applications for €130 million in grants and just over €71 million has been paid out so far. There is another €17 million in the pipeline to be paid out this week.

Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)
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I thank the Minister of State for his reply. The restart grant is being paid very promptly, and that I welcome, but it was obviously devised with manufacturing type businesses in mind. Whatever happened, the Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport did not make its case very well because rates are a major part of the overheads of any business in hospitality - hotels, restaurants and so on. The one thing we are absolutely certain about is that for as long as there is social distancing, these businesses, even though they will be open, will not be able to operate and will not be as profitable as they were previously. We have to reduce overheads. The restart grant, which is a rebate of the previous year's rates, is a very obvious first start but we need to lift the cap because it is out of sync with reality in the hospitality industry.

If we consider tour buses and so on, they will be limited in the number of passengers they carry. We need to look at the sectors that will have long-term restrictions on their ability to trade. Rather than forced unemployment, is it not much better to have people working and to make it economic to have extra staff, perhaps with a smaller turnover? That is where, again, we are a little late. There is no point crying over spilled milk but we need to have an immediate decision on the temporary wage subsidy scheme and it needs to continue for constrained businesses that cannot go back to business as usual. It needs to continue for as long as two constraints exist. One is the physical constraints because of health advice and the other is the business constraints because in terms of tourism, and this goes way beyond the tour providers, there are no foreign tourists here this year and we know people elsewhere are very reluctant to travel anywhere abroad. We find the same as regards people leaving the island. We need to deal with those issues.

I welcome the fact that people who booked holidays abroad had their deposits guaranteed. I find it hard to understand, and the Minister of State might address this, why tour operators who were taking the deposits of people coming into the country did not get the same guarantee on their deposits.

Damien English (Meath West, Fine Gael)
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To conclude and add to the comments I made earlier, Deputy Ó Cuív rightly raised the tourism and hospitality sector. With regard to any further targeted measures specifically aimed at that sector, in March 2020, a dedicated tourism recovery task force was established made up of leaders of various sectors of the industry who will work together to deal with the many challenges ahead. It is specifically tasked with identifying measures required to enable Irish tourism to recover from the devastating effects of Covid-19. Naturally, the work of the task force will feed into the stimulus plan in July as well as the long-term recovery plan in line with the budget in October. We welcome any comments or suggestions in that regard. When he addressed the House yesterday on the Microenterprise Loan Fund (Amendment) Bill, the Tánaiste asked anybody who wished to do so to bring forward suggestions or ideas. We will tease these out and they will feed into the plan. Work on the July stimulus plan is ongoing in the Department and other Departments.

The Deputy rightly identified some of the issues with the existing schemes that might affect the hospitality sector. All the existing schemes and all the efforts we have made in response to the Covid-19 outbreak are being reviewed and checked with a view to identifying changes we could make to enhance them. I will certainly feed into that review the issues the Deputy raised tonight. If he has any other suggestions, we will happy to feed those in also.

We are conscious that we have committed over €12 billion of taxpayers' money to supports. We also know, as does every Member of this House, that will not be enough. We need to add to that and we are very much committed to doing that. A package will be brought forward later this month. We will build on that and we look forward to working with Deputy Ó Cuív and all those who represent the hospitality sector on bringing forward long-term plans because the recovery will not be immediate in some sectors. We can make immediate interventions, which will help these sectors to survive, but we need to commit to this in the long term and we will do that. I look forward to working with the House in that regard.

Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent)
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The second Topical Issue Matter is in the name of Deputy Aengus Ó Snodaigh. As the Deputy is not in the Chamber, I will move on to the next matter.