I am sharing my time with Deputies Conway-Walsh and Patricia Ryan. I ask that the Ceann Comhairle be ruthless and let me know when my time is up. I will ask the Minister a number of questions and use my time to go back and forth between us. In his response to Deputy Michael McGrath in respect of women returning from maternity leave being excluded from the wage subsidy scheme, the Minister said the matter was being examined. I think the question the Deputy was putting related to whether primary legislation was neces…

With respect, smart alec answers about Government formation do not cut it when we are dealing with women on maternity leave. The Minister's party refuses to talk to mine so let us stop the nonsense. I asked a straight question. Deputy Donohoe is the Minister for Finance and he has officials at his disposal. I do not. The Minister has been given advice. Deputy Doherty made a phone call to the Revenue Commissioners and was informed that they are examining this matter and would work with the Minister's Department on i…

I can ask one question anyway. I want to know the number of inspectors in the HSA. I refer to enforcement of the new regulations that have been put in place, and I commend everybody who was involved, including the trade union movement, in putting them in place. Those regulations are ineffective if we do not have enough inspectors, so I would like to know how many inspectors the HSA has, or if resources will be given to recruit additional inspectors to enable it to do the job.

How many?

I have five minutes. With the support of the Ceann Comhairle, I will take two minutes to speak, ask the Minister of State to respond for two minutes and use the remaining minute to wrap up my contribution. It is important to leave time for us to get responses to the questions we put to the Minister of State. He said in his opening remarks that tourism is one of the most directly affected sectors in the current crisis. Nobody would disagree with that. He also said that tourism will seek to survive before it can star…

I agree that no plan is a simple one. There are no simple solutions. There are moving parts to all of this; I accept that. We also have to accept, however, that there are some sectors that will be much more adversely affected than others, and tourism is one of the obvious ones. There is a need for a bespoke solution for tourism, separate from what is being put in place for other sectors. The Minister of State is correct in what he said about the south east. In the aftermath of the last economic crash some regions p…

The Covid-19 crisis has caused a major economic shock. Hundreds of thousands of workers have lost their jobs and many businesses are struggling to stay afloat and face an uncertain future. We need an economic and social plan for the here and now. We also need a plan for when we start to emerge from this crisis - which we will - and we have to get it right. We have choices to make and we must make the right ones in the time ahead. We cannot repeat the mistakes of the past. The Minister's Government cannot rule out o…