Ollie Crowe (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I want to raise the supports being offered to businesses affected by yesterday’s announcement. The Covid restrictions support scheme, CRSS, currently makes businesses that receive restart grants ineligible for further payments, as the majority of Members of this House will be aware. That needs to be changed as a matter of urgent priority, within the next 24 to 48 hours. Effectively, premises with late-night licences, such as nightclubs, will have to close due to yesterday’s decision, and others will have their incomes severely reduced. The CRSS restriction affecting businesses that have received restart grants must be removed. We must make the CRSS open to businesses immediately.

The pandemic unemployment payment, PUP, must be restored for impacted employees of these businesses. As Senator Black outlined, the live music sector must be included at once. The sector has been hammered by Covid, and thousands of small businesses face a genuine battle to survive a crisis not of their own making. After yesterday’s announcement, some businesses had been shut for over 500 days before having been open for just 27 days. We must make every effort and provide every support possible to ensure these businesses have a fair chance of survival. The employee wage subsidy scheme, EWSS, needs to be extended for at least the first quarter of next year for businesses in the sector. It simply cannot be accepted that other sectors rightly had the opportunity to avail of the scheme for over a year as they rebuilt while businesses in the music sector had 27 days in which it could be used. In general, the hospitality sector needs critical support. I call on the Government to offer this at once.