Eugene Murphy (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I want to extend my good wishes to a good friend of many years, the Minister of State, Deputy Sean Fleming. It is lovely to call him that after all these years. As I said earlier in the House, I am sure he would like the circumstances of his appointment to be different but it is great that he is in the job. He has always been a man of common sense and understanding.

I have been following the debate from my office and there have been some very good contributions in the Chamber today. I go back to a point I made in the debate last week in this House. It is great that this package is coming but its success will be down to cutting out red tape, which causes frustration and annoyance for businesses. At the moment, there is a lot of debate as to whether certain businesses will not qualify for payments because they are not going to survive. I wonder who is going to make that call. We need to be very cautious about this. We have been hit with a type of pandemic that nobody across this world could have envisaged. There are businesses for which the system might decide they cannot survive, and that might be a wrong decision. It is very important we get this legislation through as quickly as possible but, after all of our discussions, we need to be able to distribute this fund wisely and as quickly as possible.

On another point I raised in House last week, I find a lot of resilience among small businesses. As Members will know, there are some 1.4 million people involved in small business in this country and they really are the backbone of the economy. The Minister of State will know from his own constituency that there is great resilience. People are determined to survive and get on with it, but they will need assistance from the State in the autumn, hopefully through this fund. If we are not able to bring that package forward, many small businesses could be in trouble.

I have more to contribute at a later stage. This Bill is welcome and I am glad the Minister of State is in the House. I have listened to many of the comments made in the debate. All of us agree this is vital. Let us get the Bill through as quickly as possible. The bottom line is that, in the distribution of this fund, let us keep the red tape out of it. This is one time in the economic history of this country that the red tape must be taken out of the system.