Pat Casey (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Senator Gavan is right. I am just saying the hospitality sector has challenges that no other sector has. We talk about unsocial hours, weekends and night work. That is the industry. We must work those hours. If we do not work those hours, there is no industry. We talk about seasonal work and irregular hours. That is the industry. That might not be the case in cities where there is a continuous and consistent level of business all day long, every day, where people can plan and they know exactly what they are going to do Monday to Sunday. Once we go outside the city, for example to Glendalough, if it is raining at 8 a.m., we are not going to be busy. Can I ring up staff and tell them not to come in today because it is raining? If the sun shines suddenly, I think: "Holy God, I am not going to have enough staff today. Where do I find them?" It is an irregular industry, and it is very hard from that point of view.

Senator Gavan picked one statistic out of a 2019 report, and he quoted a figure of 75% non-compliance. Does he even know the number of hotels that were inspected out of the total hotels in the industry that year?