Peter Burke (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank Senator Lombard again for his persistence on this very important issue. He is right that there are fewer than 5,000 businesses awaiting payment. To be very clear and honest, as regards the service level agreement, there was a date of November included in the original agreement I inherited. As we got a new round of ICOB, however, we spoke to all the local authorities and worked with them. Now we see that many of them - over 90%, or indeed 100% - have approved payments, and that is very strong.

In connection with Cork, I spoke to the new chief executive of the council and she has committed to working in a positive manner with the Government to ensure that people are paid. The acting chief executive sent me a text message on the Thursday stating that she was available to have a phone conversation. My view is that we had enough virtual meetings during the Covid pandemic. When I go into a constituency, I want to sit down with the team, talk to them in person and help them, with a view to being proactive. I am here to help and to try to see what we can do as a Government to support Cork County Council get this vital money we have provided into the bank accounts of businesses. I encourage them to get their act together in that regard. I am absolutely willing to help them in that manner. I am here as a former Minister of State with responsibility for local government and someone who knows how the system works, having been first elected a councillor in 2009. I hope and I feel, having brought this to the attention of the CCMA, that the new chief executive will bring the energy into this role and we will see him progress this in the next week. However, we need to see progress in the next week in respect of approvals and get the data every day and payments into the bank accounts. This, together with the 15 points on our SME package, is a strong, robust way to show we as a Government are listening to businesses. I look forward to putting together a very strong budget now for businesses that will have the stamp of our enterprise policy all over its paperwork come October.