Róisín Garvey (Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State for coming here. I have got sad in the Chamber twice but today I will just get mad. I come from Clare. I can speak only for my own county. We need this more than anything ever before, and I commend Senator Casey on bringing this proposal forward. The tourism and small business sectors have been crucified. This is the last thing they need. It is a real kick in the teeth. If I were the Minister of State, I would be seriously worried about not getting support from the House on this if he does not support the amendment. We talk about the multinationals and the €13 billion for Apple and then we look at the small businesses and we say "No". It is just not good enough. The small businesses are the backbone of rural Ireland - and urban Ireland, actually. We know we cannot all rely on the big multinationals, whether Amazon or - I do not wish to name any others, but they will do what they want, use us for what they need and go off again when they need to. Small businesses will be affected by this. It would just be wrong not to take this amendment on board. It is 2020. This is so easy. I could go to my son and a couple of his friends in second year of college or some of the young scientists and they would have an app done for us in the morning to figure out the accumulative nature of this. This is not a big challenge. I do not know if the Department even needs extra staff for this; it just needs a bit of cop-on and some clever people with IT skills. The Minister of State is making this out to be a big deal in saying it is too hard to keep track of and so on. I strongly recommend that he supports the amendment, and I thank Senator Casey for bringing it before the House.