Maria Byrne (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I second the suggestion made by Senator Buttimer that the commission should take the lead and put together a proposal for the secretarial assistants. I lend my support to all of my colleagues who raised that issue.

I welcome the fact that today is the International Day For The Elimination Of Violence against Women. I also welcome that will be 16 days of activism to highlight the matter. I welcome the funding that was announced this morning of €445,000 for the many organisations that support women who have gone through a very traumatic time. Last week, I met representatives of the Rape Crisis Midwest centre in Limerick. Some of the issues that they highlighted to me were certainly frightening and harrowing. I wish to lend my support to the campaign in this regard.

The main thing I want to talk about is the shop local initiative. There is a great opportunity for us all, especially with Black Friday tomorrow - some people have renamed it Green Friday - to support local businesses. Many small local businesses create local employment. They are niche businesses and many of them are family owned. These businesses have had a harrowing 20 months and it is important that we shop local.

I wish to highlight the fact that there is a small benefit or exemption available to all companies where they can avail of tax relief when buying Irish vouchers for their employees. It is important that companies do two things. First, they should acknowledge the work that their employees have done over the past 20 months. Second, they should buy Irish vouchers to support small local Irish businesses. Such an initiative would greatly benefit the economy in terms of keeping businesses open and keeping people in jobs.