Maria Byrne (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The Minister of State is welcome. Before I start, I wish him and Aideen all the best for their wedding day on Thursday and a long life together. I welcome the Bill. I come from a small business background and I am aware of the plight of small businesses, especially in times of Covid. We are starting to come out the other side. I have been working with many small businesses that are either feeling the pinch or have found recovery hard. The Bill comes at an opportune time, and the fact that we are updating the 2014 legislation is most welcome. Some 778,000 workers are employed by small companies. I know that we have to protect employees but unless we can protect the companies they are working for, they will not have any companies to be employed by. That is something we have to keep in mind.

Many small businesses, especially across the hospitality and service sectors, have really felt the pain. As has been mentioned, while there has been a delay to the opening up and expansion of the hospitality sector, many businesses have not been able to open because they did not have outside facilities. I welcome the fact that Cabinet is looking at opening up these businesses. The fact that 17 companies made submissions to this shows that there was a real interest in it. I know that key stakeholders engaged with it as well. The fact that small businesses have an equal footing with some of the larger companies is to be welcomed. The period of examinership has been reduced from 150 days down to 70 days and the costs are being kept down as maybe the cases are not appearing in court. Some of the financial institutions have not been good in working with small businesses and that is what I am finding from listening to them. This Bill will strengthen the foothold of small businesses. Senator Gavan referred to Debenhams and Gap in Limerick. Both of those businesses closed and many employees were hit by that. While I know that Debenhams is a bigger company and it has a bigger sister company, Gap in Limerick had fewer than 25 employees. It ended up being closed down and the staff did not get a lot out of it.

The rescue plan has been put in place and it should be binding on all members and creditors where it is approved by 60% in number of one class of impaired creditors representing a majority in value of the claim. This is referred to as a cross-class cramdown. The process does not require an application to the court in circumstances where no creditors object to the plan. These are most welcome because any of the small businesses I have been talking to are really appreciative that these changes are being brought in. I want to wish the legislation all the best because it is good that small businesses are being helped along the way. I compliment the Minister of State and the Tánaiste on all the work they have done on this and for seeing any problems that small businesses are facing. I wish the legislation safe passage.