Damien English (Meath West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank Senator Crowe for raising this issue. I will close by reminding the House of the importance the Government has placed on supporting business, including publicans, during the pandemic. Most businesses recognise that too. We want to support businesses and jobs, but we also recognise the pressures on the SME community when its trade was restricted. We are aware of the importance of small businesses such as publicans and others in the hospitality sector right throughout the country in terms of creating jobs and helping us to keep 2.5 million people in work now and also in the future.

As referenced earlier, there are no figures available for 2021 broken down by excise band, but I will provide them to Senator Crowe when we have the updates. Unfortunately, given the nature of a pandemic such as the one we recently suffered, some closures were inevitable. It is recorded as 200, but it is possibly slightly more. I am thankful, as I am sure is the Senator, that the majority of the 7,000 plus pubs are still in operation, although some are open for fewer hours because of staffing issues.The Senator raised the issue of permits. We have made major reforms in this regard and have trebled the number of staff available in the sector. Last week, nearly 1,100 permits were processed. In an equivalent week last year, fewer than 400 permits were processed. The time taken to process a general permit has been reduced to 13 weeks from 22 weeks. Critical skills permits take five weeks. We will continue to focus on that.

We are trying to cut away much of the red tape. We have made as many changes as we could in the Department under the existing legislation. We have new teams and streamlined methods. We engage clearly with people who submit applications. By law, the job has to be advertised. That is clear and well flagged, and I think most people now understand it. Many people come to us who have missed that for some reason. We try to deal with them too but under the legislation, the law has to be advertised. Permits are not meant to be the first step to filling a job. They are meant to be the last resort. We try to source talent within the country, then in Europe and then we go beyond that. The system responds and we have prioritised the hospitality sector at this time of year, as we did last year. Hundreds of permits for chefs have been granted. We will do more in the next couple of weeks. New legislation will soon come to the House, in which we will introduce the flexibility that the system needs for the future.