Martin Conway (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

As I said, I support the outline of what is going to be a very busy Order of Business today. I commend the Government on the cost-of-living measures that were announced to supplement what was already announced in the budget last October. They are targeted responses. They are not everything we would all like to see. Overall, it is a package that will put money back in people's pockets and help people through what is a very difficult period. I particularly welcome the announcement that the 9% VAT rate will remain until the end of August. That gives some breathing space to our hotels, our restaurants, our accommodation providers and the people in the general tourism industry in County Clare and indeed all other counties that depend heavily on tourism. It means that for every €100,000 of turnover they take in, they will have an extra €3,500 to reinvest in their businesses, and to help to sustain and grow their businesses in future. Like everybody else, I fully accept that these are temporary measures which will come to an end on 31 August. However, we need to have a debate on VAT rates in general because they are too restrictive. We need to be able to see regionalised VAT rates for cities. There should be city taxes that deal with the gouging and the other issues that take place in cities and busy areas.

The social welfare measures are welcome. Everybody accepts that we will see a significant drop in fuel and diesel costs over the coming months. The sensible approach is to have a phased reintroduction of the measures that were put in place to support people who are filling their tanks every day to go to work. It is a sensible approach. It is not a cliff edge. It is welcome. Overall, it is targeted. The changes being made to the temporary business energy support scheme, TBESS, scheme, are indeed welcome. I would like to see people who use bulk tank gases in rural Ireland, particularly in the restaurant industry, benefit from the TBESS. A restaurant in Ballsbridge that gets piped gas benefits from the TBESS, but restaurants in Ballinalacken or Ballyvaughan in County Clare that use bulk tanks do not benefit from it. I hope the Minister will introduce some sort of grant measure in order to correct that anomaly because we cannot have rural Ireland being discriminated against in the TBESS compared with urban Ireland.