The pandemic has caused untold damage to people's lives and livelihoods. We recognise that and the budget is an attempt to respond. Too many businesses have been severely impacted by the restrictions needed to ensure public health safety during the pandemic. The agenda has to be to protect public health while also trying to ensure we can keep our economy alive and open, keeping people in jobs and businesses open as long as possible. Our response to Covid-19 will continue to assist those businesses affected. The bud…

I am happy to hear suggestions and ideas that the Deputy has because we are still working through the SME growth task force. We will look at all ideas and initiatives. The economic recovery plan will be published in November, for which a €3.4 billion recovery fund has been set aside to fund ideas and new initiatives and to target certain sectors through our agencies. There is also contingency funding. More than €5 billion that has been set aside to work with during 2021, to fund ideas and initiatives and to target …

To be clear, our business supports and all the initiatives we have announced, such as the July stimulus package of more than €5 billion, the budget package of close to €18 billion that was just announced and the business supports from the Department, do not discriminate by age and certainly would not do so. We support business and job creation and that is what we are trying to do. I am happy to say the budget has addressed every issue the Deputy raised. We will do more to support business-----

I reiterate my point about business supports. If the Deputy wants to bring forward any initiatives or new ideas, we will work with them. We have worked with the events sector and the arts sector to try to respond. Naturally, the budget cannot plug every gap and every hole in the finances-----

-----but we are trying to reach out to the different sectors with the various schemes. Many businesses in the Deputy's county of Tipperary will benefit from the rates waiver. Rates have been cancelled for this year and will be subsidised by local government. There is also a fund for next year. The main asks of us from business were the restart grant, the Covid restrictions support scheme, the wage subsidy scheme and trying to manage the public health messaging so that they can keep their businesses open. We will do…

I thank Deputy Harkin for her question and I assure her we are focused on balanced regional development and protecting the viability of businesses and SMEs throughout the country. This was the case generally even before Covid but it is certainly the case in relation to Covid and Brexit, which is coming down the tracks. We have taken a strong regional approach over the past seven or eight years as Fine Gael has been involved in various Governments. The statistics show the majority of jobs, more than 65%, are created…

I agree that we do not need to hear more of the same and I constantly try to put out the view that people in here talk down rural and regional Ireland, though there are many opportunities and supports. The whole design of having the regional enterprise funds and regional plans is to tap in to the entrepreneurial spirit of those regions and get collaboration across State agencies and, more important, across the business community in those sectors. I have been involved with them in my previous time in the Department.…

I welcome the involvement of the regional assemblies which have a very active role to play. We engaged with them quite a lot in the development of Project 2040, the national development plan, and the national planning framework around that to guarantee that those regions have long-term plans. I have said before in these Houses that if we are to permanently address an imbalance in regional development, it will not happen in one or two years. It will happen with sustained investment over a 20 or 30-year period but we…

I thank Deputy Durkan for raising this question and always having his finger on the pulse of where events might lead us. Naturally, we are trying to manage the economy, job creation and sustainability around business and jobs through all levels of this plan. The Tánaiste has been very clear that it is about getting the balance right. That is why, at this time, most of the country is operating under level 3. We will be able to judge in the weeks ahead how that is impacting. My Government colleagues and I are focused…

The Deputy's question is targeting an area that is important for us all, probably because of his time as Minister of State with responsibility for social welfare. It is important that, in providing supports through the Departments of Education and Skills, Employment Affairs and Social Protection, and Business, Enterprise and Innovation, we ensure that nobody falls between the cracks. The Deputy will have seen in the July stimulus plan that some of the conditions around access to those supports were relaxed so peopl…

The Deputy is touching on something close to my heart. As a young fellow, I spent many days in the car with my father who was a community welfare officer back in the days when such officers could call to a house, get an understanding of what was happening and spend time with a family. Over the years, the volume of activity increased in an effort to reach people with supports through social protection or essential needs payments and it has become harder to have a connection with families. That is particularly true d…

I will deal with the issue in the question and bring a focus to the resources from the budget. The HSA has a broad remit with responsibility for the enforcement of workplace health and safety legislation as well as chemicals safety, market surveillance of certain products and the national accreditation body. It is vital to prioritise the safety and health of all workers in a way that promotes and facilitates business growth and sustainability, aids competitiveness and protects workers, which is the key part of the …

The HSA has an ongoing skills development programme. Its inspectors are very highly skilled across a range of functions and it has invested in that ongoing programme and not just for this year. The extra resources it is allocated builds on extra money, and extra places, that would have been allocated in terms of staff sanctioned during 2020. It strengthens our team to be able to deal with issues like Covid-19 and Brexit, which is also a major part of the work. It will be in a very strong position to do that and it …

I am glad the Deputy recognised the skills of the staff involved. He might also recognise their judgment, their work and their reporting to us. In most cases, they are coming across very high compliance rates with the Covid-19 protocol and other issues of their work also. In most cases, 92% are in line with Covid-19 measures. The Deputy might accept that that is the feedback we are getting from them and that includes quite good compliance in the meat sector also. There is general information coming back from the hi…

I thank my colleagues for affording me the time to address a few issues in the context of the budget. I will focus mainly on my Department. This is a pro-jobs budget, which is what we need if we are to keep businesses open and jobs in place once the various restrictions are lifted. This budget will show our business community that there are supports to help get them through Covid and Brexit and that they will be able to re-employ their staff, reopen and grow their respective sectors. I welcome these supports, which…

I thank Deputy Munster, the proposer of the Bill. I understand the motives behind it. We have had discussions here already in the past few weeks. I note the Deputy is prominent in flagging the issues affecting local business. It is not just that as in general, the Deputy wants to bring forward the discussion as well. I listened carefully with interest to both Deputies Munster and O'Reilly. I note that the Bill introduced by both essentially proposes an expressed statutory right for trades unions to have their repre…

I thank Deputy Imelda Munster and her team for putting forward the Bill and for the discussion around it. While I might not agree on the necessity for it, it is still no harm to have the discussion and to go through it. It is wrong, however, to portray this Government, including my party and our role in the Government, as being against improvements in workers' rights and conditions. That is absolutely not the case. There is a consistent effort by Sinn Féin and other speakers to portray the Tánaiste, my party leader…

The Deputy should check the speeches.

I know that. I did not name Deputy O'Reilly.

I do not doubt that for one moment. I did not refer to Deputy O'Reilly at all, to be clear.