Timmy Dooley (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I am glad to have the opportunity to contribute to this debate, and I thank the Minister of State for being before the House. The reality is that small to medium-sized enterprises are the backbone of our economy. Many of them are struggling through no fault of their own but as a result of a decision the Government took effectively to shut down the economy in the best interest of public health. However, we have to be careful. Loans are not the way forward for the vast majority of these companies. While the measures in the Bill are welcome, they put a debt burden on the shoulders of small operators that have come through a difficult period. We are all aware of and understand the financial crash of ten years ago.Many of the small to medium-sized enterprises were just starting to crawl out of the ashes of that crisis. Taking on another debt burden, at between 4% and 5%, is certainly not acceptable. We have to look at how we can reduce those to close to zero rates in the full knowledge that we are supporting a recovery in the economy. These people are prepared to put their shoulders to the wheel to work really hard to re-establish their businesses.

We also have to look at some of the other grant supports. The criteria for those restart grants are effectively too tight. I spoke yesterday to a number of small operators. I will give the example of one, an individual who is involved in the pony trekking and horse trekking business. His business is eliminated. He was providing that service to American tourism operations where a lot of Americans were coming in to a particular hotel and he provided his services around it. He does not fit the criteria to get the funding but he still has 20 or 30 horses that have to be maintained. He will not see any recovery in his business or any cash flow at all from that business, perhaps until sometime next year or until a vaccine or cure for Covid-19 can be found.

The leisure, hospitality and tourism sector is particularly vulnerable at this time. We may see some activity happening within the domestic economy within the next five or six months, but the tourism window is a very tight window. There is the end of August and the shoulder period into September. That is it. If tourism operators have not made their moneys in that period of time, they are in real trouble. Another loan will not allow them to survive the winter and be ready to restart. It is not only the business itself, but the really negative impact on the wider economy as we head into next year, that we have to look at.

The Minister of State asked for ideas around the July stimulus. In that regard, one may look to the tourism sector as well, and to infrastructure into rural areas. I and others met with a number of local villages in the constituency that I know best, that of County Clare, where their sewerage schemes have fallen outside the remit of Irish Water in recent years because of the size and scale of operations that they are trying to partake in. At a time when people are starting to reflect about working from home and perhaps moving away from the large centres of population in the hope that they can work from home, smaller villages have the capacity to provide those living arrangements. However, many of them are unable to provide planning. Quite frankly, the infrastructure is not there. For example, in Clare, villages such as Broadford, Carrigaholt, Labasheeda, Cooraclare and Doolin have been waiting a lifetime to see investment in their infrastructure and all of that was wiped away with the establishment of Irish Water and the major projects that it had under way. I would suggest to the Minister of State one of the areas to look at would be a devolved grant given to the local authorities and allow them to progress these projects at arm's length and get it done. That can be done quickly. Much of the lands were already purchased. The plans are in place and the local authority could move on it.

There are also a number of shovel-ready projects in the county that I represent. There is one in Senator Conway's backyard, up at Lahinch Seaworld. I spoke to Councillor Shane Talty there over the past number of days. They are ready to go. They need a couple of million euro. It would be a phenomenal way to employ local people through the winter period when there is nothing happening in the tourism business and we could drive it on.

On the eastern side of the county, Inis Cealtra - Holy Island - has an imaginative project around attracting local, domestic tourism. It is about putting in place a visitors centre to recognise the heritage that is there. With these kinds of projects, while really worthwhile for the long-term future development of our tourism infrastructure, we can now assist in terms of creating employment in local areas to benefit the wider economy and the local community.