I thank all the Members for their contributions. I think everybody has contributed now and has shown great understanding and knowledge of the importance of helping the SME sector, as well as that SMEs are all of us and are right at the heart of our communities. They are in every town and village that we represent and everywhere we go and because of that knock-on effect, it is important to support those businesses and jobs as in so doing, we also support all our communities. Those aspects have been mentioned and wel…

The Convention Centre Dublin is a strange setting but this is an important discussion. I thank all the Deputies who made the journey across to this new Chamber to discuss this Bill today and those who spoke on it in Leinster House last night when the Tánaiste introduced it. There has been a good discussion, which has focused on many aspects of the supports needed for SMEs. I thank the Ceann Comhairle and Acting Chairmen for their efforts and all the Deputies who have participated in the debate. I am glad to hear ge…

I am trying to respond to all of the questions.

I think I have answered most of the questions. I am conscious there are others to whom I have not responded but I will come to back to them individually. In regard to the issues raised, we will work on them and feed them into the system over the next couple of months. The Tánaiste, who opened this debate but could not be here today to close it, the Minister of State, Deputy Troy, and I will work with Deputies and other Departments on the issues arising in the months ahead. We are all on the same page in that we wan…

On my reference to start-ups, in general microfinance loans are available to start-ups. They were mentioned by other Deputies and I do not suggest that all the demand in recent months has been from start-ups. Of course it has not been; it has been from businesses that want to reopen, survive and thrive. The loan is also available to the many microenterprises. There will be people who, for whatever reason during these months because of Covid-19, might have to change job category or sector. The job they had for life …

I am conscious that Deputy Catherine Murphy, who probably has to leave now, and Deputy McGuinness were not here for the whole debate. To reiterate, it is not that we are disagreeing with the need for businesses to have access to low-cost finance - that is what we are trying to achieve - but the microfinance loan is only one mechanism and does not comprise all the mechanisms. Eight or nine years ago I supported the idea of a State-led recovery bank for small and medium enterprises and I championed the cause in commi…

I thank Deputy O'Reilly for her comments. The advice of the Attorney General is that this is not the place to put such an amendment to primary legislation. That is why we are not supporting it. It is not that we do not support the goal of an interest rate that everybody can manage in accessing funding. This is what the loan process looks to achieve. It often happens in a debate that people take out one word from a contribution. I referred to "risk" and, to be fair, the Deputy knows what I meant. She is being a litt…

The Tánaiste, the Minister of State, Deputy Troy, and myself would like to thank Deputies for their attendance, participation and support as we have taken this Bill through the Dáil over the past two days. I am conscious that the logistics were a little awkward between the two Houses. I recognise the efforts of Members to make their contributions and we value all of them. It has been a long debate over the past two days but I hope we all agree that it has been useful and will lead to necessary additional supports b…

I thank the Deputy for raising this matter and the general issue of supports for business in the hospitality sector. He also flagged the matter of seasonal workers, which is certainly on our agenda as well. As has been referred to by the Taoiseach, the Tánaiste and other Ministers, the programme for Government promises to bring forward a July jobs initiative to support our economy and help restore employment. Our focus is on supporting the viability of businesses and getting people back to work as quickly as possib…

Deputy Ó Cuív rightly raised the tourism and hospitality sector. With regard to any further targeted measures specifically aimed at that sector, in March 2020, a dedicated tourism recovery task force was established made up of leaders of various sectors of the industry who will work together to deal with the many challenges ahead. It is specifically tasked with identifying measures required to enable Irish tourism to recover from the devastating effects of Covid-19. Naturally, the work of the task force will feed i…

I will take those questions at the end.

I cannot answer until the end. It is Second Stage.

Keep going.

I am delighted to be here again this year to address the House during the annual transition statements and to focus on our actions on climate change and what we are doing to deal with decarbonising our economy, our country and our development, as well as setting this country on a strong footing for many years ahead. What the Government and the Dáil are involved in is the sustainable management of our country, economy, society and communities to ensure we are dealing with all the issues before us. One of the most im…

They are.

I presume that is okay. We might not have all the answers, but we will try.

I thank the Deputy. If I miss some of the questions, I ask him to remind me what they are. I am not sure if the proposals he mentioned about preventing increases in rent and evictions will go to Cabinet this week or next week but the intention is to go to Cabinet with them. There are protections there which were supported by everyone in the House. We discussed legislation at the end of March and I committed to the Deputy that when we had the report from the ESRI on rent arrears, we would be involved in consultation…

Are they private or social houses?

I thank Deputy Durkan for his positive comments on the progress made by the Government on housing developments and the importance of whoever is in the next Government to continue to build on that success over the past couple of years. We all say there is no doubt there were not enough houses built in the past couple of years. That is what Deputy Durkan is saying. There are still not enough. There are still problems out there. I am glad the majority in here are committing to adding to the social housing stock. I tot…

I am glad we have a chance to discuss this matter again. We have had a few briefing sessions with our departmental officials on the matter, and the Deputy has probably had much discussion with Seán Armstrong, who is one of our leading people in this area. There is a commitment within the Department to work in this area. As the Deputy will know, we are involved in an EU working group, which is probably the key one dealing with embodied carbon in construction materials and the whole life-cycle cost of construction. W…