Aisling Dolan (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The Minister, Deputy Donohoe was here earlier and the Minister of State, Deputy Fleming is with us now. I want to talk about the benefits we have seen from the budget and about the supports we need to put in place for business. It is crucial that we see that this budget is backing business and that is why there has been a review of the 9% VAT rate for hospitality. It is crucial that we look at how we support businesses, not just in urban centres but in regional areas of Ireland. We know that in our city centre locations, like Dublin, there is a huge demand, particularly with the number of events that happen in our city centres but we need to look at it on a regional basis and make sure we are supporting Ireland and incentivising people to travel. All during the lockdown there was a big promotion of staycations and the importance of shopping locally, spending locally and visiting sites around the country. The budget we are putting forward is to support those groups in the time ahead. They are dealing with increased costs and we have seen and heard about the increased energy costs. We also know about the temporary business energy support scheme that is coming to support businesses in the time ahead but it is so difficult. I want to highlight that the budget has to serve the regions as well as the city centre areas. That is what we are about. If we have to support our hotels and restaurants in areas outside of city centre locations then we need to do that. We cannot penalise them because of the increased access and supports we get for Dublin or Cork city centres.