Danny Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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The purpose of this Bill is to make amendments to the Credit Guarantee Act 2012 to support the needs of businesses to access additional finance. According to the Government, the intention is to respond to the economic difficulties resulting from the aggression against Ukraine by Russia by creating a specific Ukraine credit guarantee scheme. However, the problem with rising energy prices started long before the war in Ukraine, which started around 26 February.

The skyrocketing Irish energy prices are largely caused by three factors. The ongoing dysfunctional energy policy position places an effective ban on new domestic energy sources that are not renewable. If we are to talk about the dismantling of the Shannonbridge and Lanesborough power stations, every day since they were closed the cost of electricity has gone up. I welcome credit being made more easily available to businesses across the board. However, we do not want businesses to go into debt. The cause of many of them being in trouble is the cost of electricity, petrol and diesel. When we talk about the cost of living going up, it is basically all due to the cost of energy. There are so many things we could be self-sufficient in. I do not agree with all this climate change because the records tell us that climate change happened back over the years.

I do not agree that what we are doing is the cause of it, including the people cutting enough turf to keep themselves warm for the winter. I am proud of the people who go out and cut their own turf and are keeping themselves warm when the rain and bad weather come. I am proud of those people and they are proud of themselves for being self-sufficient. We know members of the Government are not happy about it. Do they want those people to be cold? The cost of heating oil today is €1.40 or €1.50 a litre. It costs an enormous amount at this time to fill a tank. People are putting only €300 or €400 worth of oil in to keep themselves going for a couple of weeks.

This country survived during the Second World War because of turf. The Government seems to be blaming the current war for everything. Surely we should be doing things to help ourselves to be as self-sufficient as we can be, not pandering to Russia by buying its coal and being dependent on it for gas. We should be storing gas in the old Kinsale Head gas field. We could have bought enough gas during the summer, when it was much cheaper, and stored it there for use. We could be developing the oil field off Barryroe, from which we could derive gas, petrol and oil distillates. Likewise, deposits of gas were found off the Kerry coast but, in 2019, the then Taoiseach, who is now the Tánaiste, took away the licences from the prospective operators who were going to drill there. We could now be exporting gas to other parts of the world if we sourced our own gas. Instead, the Government has cut off its nose to spite its face. It does not understand the harm it is doing to the poor honest people who are trying to live, keep a roof over their heads and travel to work faced with the high cost of petrol and diesel.

The cost of electricity is another problem. The Government is saying it will introduce a windfall tax and give it back to the people. Why is it allowing the electricity companies to charge so much that they are tripling their profits? Is it because the Government is getting triple the amount of taxes out of them? Where is the energy regulator? Where is the Minister who is in charge of this? The people in Kerry I represent, like people in the areas other Deputies represent, are totally disenchanted by this type of policy. Why are the energy companies not being curtailed at this time?

Jennifer Murnane O'Connor (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail)
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The Deputy's time is up. Deputies Michael Collins and Mattie McGrath are sharing the next slot.

Michael Collins (Cork South West, Independent)
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All across the country, SME owners are worried and struggling as we head into the winter due to rising costs, higher interest rates and waning consumer confidence. While the Government cites the war in Ukraine as the rationale for this Bill, many other factors are also to blame. The Government's ongoing dysfunctional energy policies, for example, mean Irish consumers are paying much higher prices than almost any other European citizens for petrol, diesel, home heating oil and electricity. Yes, the war on Ukraine is driving up energy and commodity prices and making it harder to get certain materials, but it is deeply cynical for the Government to hide behind the war when its own policies are causing the most pain for Irish consumers.

The taxes being charged on energy in Ireland are higher than in any other EU country. Our carbon taxes are among the highest anywhere in the world. These factors are causing our energy prices to soar. Another factor is that the Government will not provide security of domestic energy supply by opening up drilling for new oil and gas supplies off our coast. The Ukraine enterprise crisis scheme and other measures will, we hope, help businesses competing internationally and suffering the broader effects of skyrocketing energy costs. However, they will do absolutely nothing to tackle the underlying causes of this crisis.

The new credit guarantee scheme is expected to open before the end of the year, providing low-cost, unsecured working capital to SMEs and primary producers. The Government says it is designed to help businesses to spread increased input costs and limit the disruption to supply chains. However, while the Minister for Finance, Deputy Donohoe, and others in government continue to give red-carpet treatment to the head of the European Central Bank, ECB, ordinary people are being hit hard by the ECB rate hikes, which will do more damage than intended and will almost certainly trigger deep recessions in many EU countries, including Germany, France, Italy and Ireland. Worse still, they will see thousands of Irish mortgage holders lose their homes as they will not be able to meet the rising monthly loan repayments.

On paper, the two-tier Irish economy will keep growing, thanks to the robust exports from the multinationals based here and buoyant corporate tax receipts. However, the domestic economy, which impacts people in every community, will struggle gravely. That is what I have been told in the past few months when I met with publicans, restaurant and café owners, hoteliers, family owners of supermarkets, farmers and fishermen. They are in a crisis. The Government has been throwing €200 here and there at householders but the bottom line is the bills these businesses face are astronomical. A payment of €200 will do nothing for them. The few quid they are getting is not enough.

Many business owners are worried. I met with hoteliers recently in Clonakilty who told me some of them, and their family members, would have to work for free next year. The owners of family-run hotels will not take any money for themselves. At the same time, the Government is saying it will leave the VAT rate at 9% for now but might increase it to 13.5% in February. There must be clarity on that straight away, maybe even tonight. Surely the Government understands the pressure on some of these hotel owners. They are not all taking in refugees. These are hotels that rely on a summer trade to do their business. It is hard to believe but the owners and their families will have to work for free next year if the situation continues as it is.

If the VAT rate goes from 9% to 13.5%, it will have devastating consequences for many of these hotel owners. The same is true for shop owners. The problem for these businesses is that their costs are rocketing, with electricity bills of €30,000 or €40,000 a month. That increase has to go onto the price of the drum of milk, the loaf of bread and the box of eggs. It has to go onto the shelf because the owners cannot take the hit. Alternatively, they will have to reduce the number of staff on the floor, which will be another blow to people.

The crux of the whole issue is that the Government was caught napping. Not just this Government but successive Governments were asleep at the wheel. We should have had our own energy supply and our own fuel. A lot of speakers in this House waffle on with the spin that we can do without fuel. We cannot do without it. How do people get to this Chamber every day? Some 99.9% of us drive here. That is the way it is at the moment and there is no alternative. If there was an alternative, I would be the first person jumping up and down to support it. The alternative is not there.

There are Deputies who continue to say they are delighted the Kinsale Head gas and oil field is going out of operation and that we do not need to open an oil field in Barryroe. They are all in cloud cuckoo land. The best experts in the world say wind energy will not take the place of any of these fuels until 2035 or 2040. Some of the same Deputies tried to give that old spin in the audiovisual room more than a week ago when we had experts in to discuss the issue. Those Deputies were all quietened with the click of a finger because they were given true and honest answers. Many of them do not want to hear those answers but they are the facts.

There are proposals for liquefied natural gas, LNG, floating gas terminals. LNG is a very clean fuel that could perhaps be put through the pipes in Kinsale, provided the Government does not fill them with concrete, as it is strongly rumoured to be proposing to do. That will have to be watched carefully. There is a company in this country that has bought 250,000 tonnes of Colombian coal. That coal is brought into the country from Colombia but we cannot produce anything ourselves. We are beginning to look like a farcical nation.

Mattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent)
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We are told the purpose of the Credit Guarantee (Amendment) Bill 2022 is to make amendments to the Credit Guarantee Act 2012 to support the needs of business to access additional finance. According to the Government, the creation of a Ukraine credit guarantee scheme is in response to economic difficulties resulting from the aggression by Russia against Ukraine.

My goodness what will we call it next? Will we change our name altogether? Instead of being Ireland will we become Ukraine? The last scheme did not work. The Minister will remember that. It was an abject failure because the money was not given to the small companies; it was given to the grubby main banks and they would not lend it. Farmers, agricultural contractors and businesspeople who had vibrant business plans were told "No, no, no". Yet the Government makes the same mistake over and over again. Someone told me one time that to keep doing the same thing over and over again is the definition of "mental illness". Yet we see the Government doing the same thing here the whole time. It is beholden to the banks. It is selling off part of AIB now to make more money. This is not going to work. It does not cut it with me and it does not cut it with ordinary people. The amount of money being talked about is staggering. There are three reasons that I can see. There is the ongoing dysfunctional energy policy, which places a ban on domestic energy sources, especially our own here if it is not renewable. We all want to be renewable and be green but we do not have the wherewithal to do it. We do not get into the car tonight and then take off two wheels before we go to drive it. We have to keep it going, get the NCT and keep it roadworthy and have it taxed and insured and keep the licence and all to drive it. However, here the clamour is to be greener and holier than thou. It is complete codology. I could call it worse.

The lack of an energy facility is another madness until such time as we have the renewables. Our oil prices and taxes are among the highest in the world, especially carbon tax. One of our European partners, possibly Sweden - it will not come to me - deferred carbon tax two weeks ago because of the cost-of-living crisis but, no, the Government parties want to bring it in like they are going out on a fine day making a cock of hay in the field long ago. They have a nice big cock to give out to their friends, the big business people. That is what it is at. As I said the providers for the scheme are supposed to be the primary producers and mid-caps defined as businesses with up to 490 people. What is the minimum size of a business that is allowed to approach for a loan? Who is looking after the business for the fear amháin or the bean amháin, the one-man show or one-woman show? Who is looking after them, giving them money? What about those with one to five workers who maybe have a couple members of the family working, or one to ten? They are the businesses being crushed and walked over. They cannot keep the lights on at the moment and then cannot get finance from any source. They get it from the credit union to be repaid to the credit union but anybody else, no. We are trying to support the credit unions. The Central Bank, of course, moved in at the behest of the Government and the Minister at the time, Michael Noonan, and nobbled them and any idea they had. We went abroad and looked at banking models. There is a model in New Zealand and Sparkasse in Germany is a model of community banking, of the people for the people by the people. I did research on those. I have never been to Germany but I always thought it was about massive companies like Volkswagen and Bosch and the products that we see. In Germany, 90% of the companies comprise one to 50 people and they have community banking that lends to the community and all the profits go back into the community. That would not do in Mother Ireland at all because we could not look after the people who look after the Government parties, who bankrolled them and kept them in power for years. The naked truth is as simple as that. Why else would the Government not change and look after the people? They look after the big people all the time.

We met with ESB senior officials today. I thank them for coming to meet us, and I thank the ESB staff on the ground who work in all weathers and come out at all times. We had a meeting of nearly two hours. It was an exhausting meeting. We expected something but they cannot do anything because of Government legislation and the so-called regulator who will not allow them to bring down the prices. Imagine that the regulator will not allow that, the regulator who is meant to be acting on behalf of the people, daoine na hÉireann, as the Government is, and as we are, elected for the time being to represent the people, but the Government abandoned the people a long time ago. That is why the Government will be moved out of there soon and others will take its place because it has been there for 11 years and things have gone from bad to worse from the bank so-called bailout, which was a cleanout and robbery. The Government put nothing only misery on the people and the regulator will not allow the ESB to drop the costs. They were delighted for a while that legislation was being prepared at European level that might give us some hope of a reduction but, no, that cannot happen either even though legislation is going to be proposed in a blaze of glory. Ministers will probably fly out again on jets to Europe or some part of Europe for another global summit, meet their global masters and come back to say they are introducing this Europe-wide. However, it is not going to back off the meter on the wall or off the businessman who cannot keep his butcher shop open or his restaurant open. Businesses are closing, including the one-man show, the two-man show and the firms with one to ten employees. They are the people who are disappearing like snow off a ditch. Family businesses for generations will never be replaced. We lost the bakery in Clonmel town recently after 62 years of service to the people because of the cost of electricity. The Government did nothing for them. Its failure to act is a betrayal of the people. It brings in Bills like this but it might as well use the paper to make a paper trail for the kids to play with in the front year because that is as far as it is going to get. The Government will come back later on tonight to push through all Stages of this. Irish Water is another big monopoly. The Government parties are like children of five years of age let out of school. They want everything big, like big sand castles. It wants all these big utility companies. The county councils and the ordinary people, na daoine beaga, served this country well. They fought and freed it. They gave us our democracy. They brought us to where we are up till 20 or 30 years ago until the Government went greedy, mad and plundered our country. I have said it before and I will say it again: Cromwell did not do as much damage to this country as the past three or four Governments have done. I was part of the first one in 2007 and I was lucky to be released from the chains of that group but they have gone their merry way serving the global leaders of the world and not serving the ordinary daoine of Éireann.

Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail)
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That was like a QAnon speech. I do not know who these global masters we are all servile to are but it was an interesting speech. There was much in it that I would agree with. Deputy McGrath's cock of hay comment will be taken out of context. It will probably be a meme before the night is over.

Mattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent)
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Does the Deputy know what I mean by it?

Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail)
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I do actually, I farm, probably more than Deputy McGrath. I was making the point that I agree with him but a younger generation would not get the comment about the cock of hay. It was just in jest. I thank the Acting Chair for the opportunity to speak on this important Bill. We are going to amend an important piece of legislation to ensure that small- and medium-sized enterprises, SMEs, are recapitalised and have a steady flow of money that will in some way alleviate the pain they are going to face in the months ahead. It has been well covered in other speeches but I want to use my speaking time to address an issue that got a good deal of airtime today on the national radio stations. It was covered on the front page of the Irish Mirror. It is the story of Crowe’s Gala Shop in Sixmilebridge, County Clare. They are no relations of mine but they are people I know in the local community. They run a valued supermarket locally. On the front of that paper was Flora Crowe who is a young shopkeeper carrying on the family tradition of providing a store in the local community. Sixmilebridge is a community that does not have a SuperValu, Lidl, Aldi or Tesco supermarket. It is reliant on the service that the Crowes and the other major grocer in the village, the Flynns, provide. To give some context this is a relatively small supermarket. It could just about fit in the middle of the Chamber on the lower level. The Crowe family now face a bill of €20,000 for electricity. This is devastating. Last year they thought they had seen the bill to beat all bills with €6,500 going up to €8,000 on the following bill. Now it has gone up almost threefold to €20,000. This is a bill they simply cannot pay. On budget day the temporary energy support scheme was announced. It is a positive intervention that will reduce some of the pressure that SMEs will face this winter.

I looked on the Revenue website on 28 October. It has not been updated since. Business owners are checking it day in, day out to see how they can avail of this support. On that day it stated that further details on how to apply for and draw down the scheme would become available in the weeks ahead. That is almost a fortnight ago and businesses now need to know. The likes of Crowe’s Gala shop in Sixmilebridge and so many others are getting these bills in the post. They do not know when they will be able to engage with this, how they will apply to Revenue or when that portal will be open.

It is very important as well that some kind of reclassification is made in terms of small and medium-sized businesses. Crowe’s and Flynn's in Sixmilebridge, like many other stores around the country, are family-owned entities. They have the branding over the door, but they are family-owned entities. They do not have motherships like Dunnes Stores, Tesco, Lidl or Aldi to lean back on. When these bills come in, they risk not being able to pay and risk defaulting with their energy providers. That is of huge concern. This scheme cannot come in quickly enough. However, it needs to go beyond that. Some better detail and clarification is needed. On budget day, I heard that the intervention will cover up to 40% of gas and electricity bills. In money terms, that will be €10,000 per month. That might benefit the larger store very well, but it certainly would not in its current guise benefit the small family-run store. There is a need for some amendments in that regard.

Most of these supports will expire at the end of February. For the likes of Crowe’s shop and many other retail outlets, however, turning off the refrigeration or the ovens in the deli counter area will simply not be an option when they get to the end of February. These are stores that rely on food refrigeration and heating systems that simply operate on a 365-day basis. They do not get shut off. If the local store in Sixmilebridge was to close, there is nothing else. This is a community that relies on its local shop. As I have said, they do not have any of the giant supermarkets in their community; they rely on the local family-run store.

On supports for businesses, our farming community is very reliant on grant incomes. There is a huge farming community in Clare. In fact, Clare has the highest reliance on suckler beef systems in the country. About 85% of our farm systems in Clare are suckler beef. I note that Deputy Mattie McGrath has left the room. I am a suckler beef farmer. I was out this morning at 6.30 a.m., foddering cattle in the shed before getting suited and booted and coming up to the Dáil. That is how many rural people live.

I have concerns about the agri-climate rural environment scheme, ACRES, which is being introduced by the Minister, Deputy McConalogue. It is a good scheme but it does not bring everyone with it. The Burren programme has been running in the Burren area of north Clare, with its famous karst stone landscape, for many years. This very successful scheme has surpassed all expectations. There are approximately 400 farmers in the Burren who sustain that environment. They manage and maintain it better than anyone. They manage it so well that UNESCO has now granted it world geopark status. It is now being suggested that they should move forward with the Burren and Aran scheme in the ACRES programme. I am very concerned that there will be a loss of funding for them. For some of them, it will make it unviable. They simply will not want to be out foddering cattle be it on a full-time basis or before or after work. If they walk off the field, so to speak, it will be to the detriment of the Burren and once again we will see parts of that karst landscape with shallow soils returning to a hazelwood jungle. That is what it looked like for many years and that is what that landscape looks like when it is not appropriately maintained. I have spoken directly with the Minister, Deputy McConalogue. Farming is often cast aside as just a rural activity, but it is an enterprise and a business. It sustains many families in rural Ireland, including 400 in the Burren area and many more throughout Clare.

I conclude by welcoming this Bill that is before the Oireachtas. It is positive and progressive. However, the likes of the Crowe family, who are not related to me, need to have some certainty on those budget measures announced some weeks ago. In the interests of farmers, including those in the north Clare area, ACRES needs to be adjusted before it is fully implemented in the new year to take account of those who have been on other schemes that paid better and had greater inputs with better outcomes for the landscape.

Thomas Pringle (Donegal, Independent)
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I thank the Acting Chair for the opportunity to speak on this legislation today. I support the creation of a Ukraine credit guarantee scheme, developed under the provisions of the EU temporary crisis framework to support firms struggling with the economic difficulties resulting from the aggression against Ukraine by Russia.

Recent months have been very difficult for small business owners, particularly those in rural Ireland. I spoke recently to a shop owner in my constituency of Donegal who has seen an incredible 118.8% increase in their energy bill, working out at an additional cost of €160,000 for the year. Unfortunately, energy is not the only significant rise in cost that they have had to endure of late. The high rate of inflation, due to the war, has led to all their suppliers having to increase costs as well. To maintain competitiveness, this small rural shop has had to absorb some of these increases, which has impacted on its margins. There has been a 10% increase in wrapping and packaging and a 15% increase in insurance over the past year, with insurance rising an incredible 32% since 2019. When factoring in the increased costs, they were looking at a reduction of approximately €220,000 in their bottom line.

Businesses are being hit from all angles. Prices are spiralling at an incredible rate with no sign of stopping any time soon. This is completely unsustainable and without a doubt will force the closure of a number of local businesses in my town and throughout my constituency. This Ukraine credit guarantee scheme, along with the likes of the temporary business energy support scheme, TBESS, are welcome but I am afraid they are too little, too late. Businesses are facing closure today and many have been forced to close already.

My own town of Killybegs has already seen closures due to rising costs. It feels like 2008 all over again, with the constant threat of closures looming and activity in rural towns slowing to a halt as the cost of living continues to rise. The outlook looks particularly bleak for Killybegs because the fishing industry, on which the town was built, is taking hit after hit. I welcome that the Ukraine credit guarantee scheme will include primary producers such as farmers and fishermen as well. However, it is not nearly enough for our fishing industry, which is deteriorating very quickly. The survival of our coastal communities is at stake and throwing a bit of money at them at this late stage in the game is sadly not going to make a blind bit of difference. Fishing communities have been calling for the Minister, Deputy McConalogue, to provide the emergency assistance that is urgently needed to meet fuel costs for months now. Many other member states gave emergency fuel subsidies to their fishing fleets months ago following the adoption of the temporary crisis framework by the European Commission.

The temporary crisis framework allows member states to "use the flexibility foreseen under State aid rules to support the economy in the context of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine". It provides for three types of aid, including limited amounts of aid in which member states are able to set up schemes to grant up to €35,000, which could be granted in any form, including direct grants, to companies affected by the crisis that are active in the agriculture, fisheries and aquaculture sectors. Other types of aid include liquidity supports in the form of State guarantees and subsided loans and aid to compensate for high energy prices. This temporary crisis framework was adopted on 23 March. It is now 9 November and the framework was initially only due to be in place until 31 December. What has the Government been doing all this time? While other countries have successfully put in place emergency assistance, we have waited until we are in our winter months to actually do anything. I am thinking of all those businesses that could have potentially avoided closure had something been put in place much sooner. This Government’s inaction costs livelihoods, our rural communities and our coastal communities.

The Minister, Deputy McConalogue, has turned a blind eye to our fishing industry for far too long. All that is on offer to them is a tie-up scheme as part of the Brexit response, rather than anything to do with the financial crisis. The Minister refused any further response because he did not want to affect any other funding that could come from Brussels in the meantime. The crisis is now and we need funding now to support people. The fishing communities have been calling for the implementation of aid measures since the temporary crisis framework was adopted eight months ago. It simply is not good enough. This Government has failed completely at responding to this cost crisis that businesses are facing. It has failed in responding to the fishing industry in a time of real difficulty, it has failed in meeting the needs of its citizens and it has been too slow in responding.

Richard O'Donoghue (Limerick County, Independent)
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Today, the Rural Independent Group met with senior management of the ESB. There was a debate and many questions were asked. One of the questions was on the €1.036 billion in operating profits it had after 18 months. One question was why could it not use the profits to compensate the people of this country, as it is 96% State-owned. However, under competition regulation, it is not allowed to do this, is it?

Under regulation, ESB Networks is allowed to make €1.063 billion in profits but it is not allowed to compensate households - every man, woman and child - and businesses. That is sad, is it not? Regulation is stopping those people and businesses from being compensated.

Another matter relating to regulation is that the base cost of energy is based on regulation as well. The regulation dictates that the base cost is based on the price of gas prices, coal and other fossil fuels coming into this country. It then works on a base price of what energy is going to cost. There is not much difference between any of the electricity suppliers in terms of the cost of electricity even though, according to energy bills, renewable energy accounts for 63% to 64% of energy produced. Even though it is cheaper to use renewable energy to supply electricity, it comes under the same regulation base costs as fossil fuels. Is that correct? The suppliers have no choice. As a result of a regulation, they have to charge the same base price for electricity from renewable energy as electricity from fossil fuel energy. We are here listening to people preaching to us every day about renewable energy. As a result of a regulation from Europe, the same price is being charged for renewable energy that accounts for 64% of our energy as is charged for electricity produced from coal at Moneypoint or from gas coming into the country. The people are being ripped off when it comes to energy costs.

According to statistics published this month by the Central Statistics Office, CSO, SMEs account for 99.8% of the total number of active enterprises in Ireland. This represents 68.4% of employment. I presume the Minister of State knows what SMEs are. They account for 68.4% of employment. I run an SME, as do many other people. I have just outlined that, under regulation, the price of electricity in this country is based on fossil fuels coming in even though renewable energy is also playing its part. Under competition law, renewable energy falls under the base cost of fossil fuel energy.

Now we turn around to the fossil fuel on which the Government is taking 50% of every euro spent by people who are trying to go to work. The 68.4% of the workforce who are employed by SMEs have no choice but to use their vehicle to go to work. I and other members of the Rural Independents met with the ESB today. The people we met are all based in Dublin, where they have public transport, bicycle lanes, taxis and the Luas that they can use to get to work, or where they can work from home. They have everything. I asked them about different things. The Government is charging a 50% tax on fuel, supported by the Minister of State and all his colleagues, and this is a tax on people who do not have infrastructure. It means 50% on foods being delivered to one's house, 50% on the delivery of the clothes on our backs and 50% tax on the shoes delivered to shops. It is an unfair tax on every person in rural Ireland. From the Red Cow roundabout out is rural Ireland. Rural Ireland is not above in the mountains where people come down once a week for a bite of food; it takes in anyone outside the Red Cow roundabout who does not have infrastructure.

The Government has taxes at 50% and it is talking about energy costs. It is a failure by the Government, the Minister of State and all his colleagues. I heard Deputy Cathal Crowe saying he is a suckler farmer. Why is he not opening his mouth? Why are none of the Government backbenchers opening their mouths about the energy crisis and the taxation? It is like fuel - the more the electricity price charged by suppliers goes up, the more VAT the Government takes on the bill. It is another tax on rural Ireland. You have to factor in that a person who is on €600 a week take-home pay and lives somewhere past the Red Cow roundabout has no choice but to go to work in a car. An average car takes €100 of fuel. The Government takes €50 of that before the person leaves home. The person then has to go to work. When the person gets up in the morning and turns on a light, the Government is taking VAT on the higher energy costs that are based on fossil fuel prices even though renewable energy is cheaper. But, no, the Government takes it on the high base costs, even when it comes to a company that is 96% owned by the State, because of regulations that have been brought in by Europe and the Government. It is another tax. The fuel tax is an unfair tax on rural Ireland. It is an unfair tax on people who have no choice but to drive to work. It is an unfair tax on every SME.

We heard about the butchers and other shops that are trying to keep the fridges on to store the food they will supply to families. I found out today that the cost of energy is based on an outdated regulation. If the regulation was changed, that would bring down the cost of energy. The other energy suppliers could use their profits to subsidise the energy costs but they will not do so because they know they are caught under regulation. Why can we not change the regulation? Why can we not do something for the people in this country? Why can we not do something that will save the jobs of the 68.4% of people working in this country who are employed by SMEs? They are not all here in Dublin. Many of them live near me. Some of them are my family members. They are all across the country and they want to support this country but all the Government does is tax them out of existence. We see now that the technology crowd is starting to let people go because it does not think it is viable.

The first time I raised the issue of the fuel crisis in the House, I could see the problem. The Government could not see it. The parties in Opposition could not see it, but I could see it because I am on the ground with people and I understand the cost of living. The Government does not understand it. The Minister for Finance, Deputy Paschal Donohoe, said that the citizens I was referring to are the citizens who are not in a position to support local economies and stores, so the Government takes less VAT there and that is why it is taking more tax on fuel. With the unfair tax on fuel, he is penalising everyone who has no choice but to drive. His answer was that because the citizens I was referring to are not in a position to support the likes of SMEs due to the escalating cost of food production, transport in this country is being brought down by the Government through its taxation system. I would be sickened if I was in the shoes of the Minister of State over there. I would be sickened by what the Government is doing to the next generation and to every SME in this country. It will be held to account, believe me.

Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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I appreciate the opportunity to speak on the Bill. The making of these amendments to the Credit Guarantee Act 2012 to support the needs of businesses to access additional finance is very important. According to the Government, it is in response to the economic difficulties resulting from the aggression against Ukraine by Russia and the spill, as we would call it, from that, as well as the shock wave effect it is having on economies and the cost of energy, fuel and gas throughout Europe and the rest of the world and the detrimental effect it is having on so many people's lives.

That is outside of the human side, which is outside all the financial side. Sometimes, when we are in the Chamber talking about finances and economies, we have to remember the real people who are affected by the Ukrainian war and the invasion of Ukraine, including the moms, dads, children and grandparents who are being put out of their homes and are being bombed, killed and maimed. We have to remember those people today and think of them in a sincere way and we then of course have to deal with the knock-on effects of what is happening. We have to deal with the day-to-day trouble we have and businesses have in financing their day-to-day operations.

I will talk about the problems we have. It is timely because today, Deputy Mattie McGrath and I, as well as the others in the Rural Independent Group met senior officials from the ESB. I was glad to have a meaningful engagement with them. I was grateful for their time, as were the others. It was meaningful, in that they gave us an insight into the way they perceive the situation and they have all been around for a while now. They are not Johnny-come-latelies to the job but are experienced people. They gave us the benefit of their knowledge, which I appreciated. What it tells me, however, is that the hope we have with regard to energy for this winter is like everything in life. It is a case of "What if?", "Hopefully" and "I wonder". That is what we are really relying on because, first of all, we are hoping it will not be too cold. At the same time, we are hoping there will be a bit of wind that will keep the turbines going. If we really start to think about this, these are the things we need to happen in order that ESB prices will stay affordable in such a way that businesses will not have to close. I will say again that we have to hope for a bit of wind and we have to hope and pray that it will not get too cold because if those two things happen, that is, if we have calm weather and it gets very cold, it will be detrimental to the Irish people, to families and to businesses, be they large, small or medium, because the price of energy will absolutely go through the roof. We looked at a graph today on exactly what has been happening over the past four months. The one thing that has made the graph on cost come down over recent weeks is the fact that it is mild outside. If it was cold and if usage of energy went up, we would be crucified by the price of it. We are crucified as it is.

I have an insight into the running of a small business - I have a small shop - the massive increase in ESB bills and the fact we are all now in this situation. I talk about "mom's purse" a lot, by which I mean the mom who has to balance the household budget on a Friday evening. When mom or the businessperson has to dread opening an ESB bill, something is radically wrong. When we go back over different times, whether it was during the 1980s and the slump we had at that time or during the crash of the property bubble and all that, even at that time, people did not dread the ESB bill but now they do. They are really afraid of it. I spoke today with a master butcher from County Kerry who went into great detail about what is happening in his business. It is frightening because of the massive energy usage by his business. Yesterday, I spoke with the proprietor of a large retail outlet. Sometimes, when people hear of a large business owner they think they are flying but if 80 or 90 people are working in a place, it might not be flying. It means the business owner has an awful lot of people to keep going, an awful lot of responsibilities and the bills are multiplied in accordance with the number of employees he or she has. The more turnover a person has, the bigger the bills are. It is like a vicious circle. Equally, the smaller person is crucified because he or she does not have enough turnover.

The world of business today is very difficult. That is why the credit guarantee scheme and the amendments that are being made to it are important. I know myself that when you are in trouble with a business, you have to be able to access finance. No one of us in this world has enough money to run the show or to progress. If you are in the business of creating employment, you cannot do it on your own. You need support. I am sorry to say that our pillar banks certainly do not do enough. I have spoken to people in the banks. I hate fighting about the banks because, to be blunt about it, I have to deal with them an awful lot. That is one of the reasons I do not like fighting about them but I realise the constraints that are on them. From talking to the Central Bank, the whole system of lending at present is wrong because no chance is being taken on people who see an ability to do something. Instead of bank managers deciding to take a chance with this man, woman or family and to back them, bank managers no longer have the autonomy to be able to say they have trust or faith in this person and cannot do that any more. It has to be about filling up paperwork and sending it to Dublin and that it must be evaluated.

Many is the time I have said I want to know who is evaluating my application. I want to know who is dealing with it. Who are this team? The one thing you will never be told is that it is so and so and you can pick up the phone and talk to that person. They are faceless, are hiding away in some office in Dublin and you will never get to speak to them whereas, to be fair, long ago there was a system in place whereby people togged themselves out as well as they could, looked as respectable as they could, faced the bank and met a person who was in charge. People literally had to sell themselves and they either were good at it and got on all right or, if they made a bad hand of it, they might have to have another go. They were relying, however, on a person they could look at and deal with but unfortunately that has now gone. That is one of the reasons small businesses find it so difficult to survive.

Not everybody is in the situation of having the big reputation, like the big conglomerates and so on, and can make an application for massive loans and be approved. Sometimes, a loan of a few thousand euro would mean an awful lot. That is why I have so much respect for the likes of the credit unions, which help families and small businesses by giving them loans to help them get to a better day or month and get them over a hump. I know nobody in life who was involved in business who could say they had a great run, never had a problem, and everything always went right for them because that is not the real world. This is especially so when you are self-employed because you will have a good day when you might do great and then you could have a bad week when everything could go wrong. You could say to yourself that if you were doing nothing or anything else, you would be better off. It is like the story of the person who gets up in the morning and works very hard but by the time he or she goes to bed at night, he or she might have done better by staying in bed all day. People cannot do that. They have to get up every day and fight, even if they are on the flat of their back to try to get over the day and do their day's trading. It is difficult.

Business is a lonely place at present. The one thing I would like our businesspeople in this country to think, and our moms and dads with mom's purse on a Friday, is that the Government and the Opposition have their backs and that we understand the difficulties they have. It is very easy to stand up in the Chamber to criticise the Government and say it does not have a clue. I do not want to say that because each member of the Government has families. They might have businesses and many of the difficulties everybody else have. We have to work together as a team. That is all I wanted to say.

Seán Ó Fearghaíl (Kildare South, Ceann Comhairle)
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Words of wisdom from Deputy Michael Healy-Rae. We are running out of time. The Minister of State has approximately six minutes to wrap up.

Damien English (Meath West, Fine Gael)
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I will make sure to wrap it up. If I run over time, I ask the Ceann Comhairle to tell me to finish up. I will make a couple of comments. I welcome all the contributions made last night and to date on this Bill and the support for what we are trying to achieve.

Deputy Michael Healy-Rae certainly got that message across.

The Bill seeks to support businesses through a very difficult time. By doing so, we support the jobs they create. By supporting those jobs, we support the families involved. There is a connection in that regard that is often missed in debates on supporting businesses or setting up a pro-business or pro-enterprise environment in this country. It is really important we support businesses where we can because they are the ones creating the jobs and taking the risks and the ones that could, as was said, decide to stay at home if they wanted to do so and not contribute. We are lucky to have so many businesses, many of which are SMEs. There are a few hundred thousand SMEs creating over 1 million jobs throughout the country. We are very lucky as a country to have 2.5 million people at work at a very difficult time right across the world. It is something I will never take for granted, nor does the Tánaiste, the Minister of State, Deputy Calleary, or the rest of our Department. We are constantly trying to see how we can assist to drive the agenda of being pro-enterprise and pro-business and supporting businesses. It is important we do that to help support those jobs. It is just as important, as Deputy O'Reilly said yesterday, that they are good-quality jobs with good conditions and that the welfare of workers is looked after. The majority of business owners do their best to look after their staff and want to do so. There will always be a few we have to try to deal with, but the majority have their members' and their workers' interests at heart, and we need to allow for that and work on that.

This initiative is about supporting businesses and jobs. I recognise that the majority here spoke in favour of the Bill. Many other issues outside the extent of the Bill were raised. I will not go into the issues of fishing, farming and so on because I wish to focus my time on the Bill and what it is about, which is supporting businesses. I recognise that the majority of contributors would say that many businesses do not want to borrow and do not want to be in that position. We recognise that but, exactly as Deputy Michael Healy-Rae said, in some situations they have to borrow. When that happens, certainly in times of crisis, and we had similar discussions here during Covid and Brexit, those businesses have to look at a combination of Government assistance through grants and supports, their own cash reserves they have built up, if they are lucky enough to have done so, and borrowing, if need be, to get through difficult periods in the running of their businesses. We are in that situation yet again. This credit guarantee is about making it cheaper to borrow that money and to de-risk it in order that those who are making the decisions will be more sympathetic to the businesses and take an approach that seeks more to give out the loans. The State is guaranteeing this up to 80%, which reduces the need for the bank to be overly concerned. Businesses will still need a proper credit rating - there is no doubt about that - but it is a matter of giving a chance to those businesses that are viable but need to get through a difficult time. That is what we are trying to achieve here. We recognise that the majority support this. We also recognise that this is not just about borrowing but that it will reduce the cost of borrowing and make it easier to access.

As the Minister of State with responsibility for retail in this Department, I am glad we are bringing this Bill through. It was part of the response in the budget that we said we would bring it forward. It is an initiative that has worked extremely well on other occasions, including during Covid and Brexit. It came first as a tool in the box back in 2012 or 2013. That was a little late for the financial crisis but at that time would have been a great support to businesses. I am glad it is an initiative we now have on our books that we can adjust and change, as we are doing here, at different times.

Certain speakers gave the impression that small businesses cannot avail of this scheme or that it is for somebody else. To be absolutely clear, 7,566 of the 9,800 loans were made to microbusinesses. I am sorry the Deputy who raised this, a man from Tipperary, is not here. It suits him not to be here for the facts. While he is entitled to his opinion, he is certainly not entitled to his own facts. The facts are the facts. Those 7,566 micro-enterprises benefited from this scheme to the tune of just under €1 billion. The scheme is targeted at those small businesses that need such assistance during difficult times. I encourage business owners to take the chance now to avail of schemes like this one when it is up and running in a few weeks' time and to see if this is an appropriate time to borrow money at low cost over a long number of years to get them through a difficult time. It is a time to financially assess one's business. While businesses may not want to borrow, it might make sense financially to do so now and to avail of these credit guarantees when they are in place because they will not be there for ever. This one is due to end at the end of 2023 under the current EU framework, so it is an appropriate time for businesses to look at their situation, to make an assessment and to avail of these schemes if they think it will help their businesses.

The scheme is similar to its predecessor, the Covid-19 credit guarantee scheme, the success of which I will outline. The design of the scheme meets the European Commission's temporary crisis framework requirements. It is a good opportunity for businesses in Ireland to gain strong levels of State support without any state aid implications. It is hoped the scheme will be opened before Christmas with some of the banks. Across the board there has been an open call for all lenders to avail of it, similar to the previous schemes with credit unions. Non-traditional lenders got involved in that as well. That will probably happen in the new year, so that should be widely available. The lending institutes have been encouraged to use this scheme, backed by the State, to make money available. That is what we are trying to do here.

It is important to mention that Microfinance Ireland is involved in making loans available to small businesses and the startups for microbusinesses. Very successfully, through legislation supported in this House, it has increased its ability to loan or reach more businesses and has done so during difficult times like Covid and Brexit and is in a position to do so again. Generally, it makes loans of €10,000 up to a maximum, I think, of €50,000, but the majority will be around the €25,000 mark.

The main feature of this scheme is that it is a scheme for SMEs, primary producers or small mid-caps of up to 500 employees. Previously, only about five would be mid-caps in that category, so it is generally SMEs. They are the ones we expect to be the main beneficiaries. Loans must be new loans and will be available to viable but vulnerable businesses which have been impacted by cost increases arising from Russia's aggression in Ukraine. What is the cost increase businesses have to be able to show to qualify for the scheme? The borrowers will have to declare that costs have increased by a minimum of 10% on their 2020 figures and that the loan is being sought specifically as a result of difficulties being experienced due to the crisis. In reality, that will not be difficult for businesses to demonstrate because the majority of businesses are under pressure.

Seán Ó Fearghaíl (Kildare South, Ceann Comhairle)
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That is probably a good point on which to conclude.

Damien English (Meath West, Fine Gael)
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I look forward to Members' support as we move to Committee Stage soon. I thank the Ceann Comhairle and Members for facilitating the speedy passage of the Bill through the Houses.