The start-up grant earlier this year was welcome but businesses with a turnover of more than €5 million could not apply. I realise that when the Tánaiste took over the portfolio he increased it to €25 million. If marts sold 100 cattle a week they would go over the €5 million mark. When they reopened, some of them were not aware that it had increased to €25 million and that they could apply for funding after they reopened. Some of these marts have put in a fair amount of online infrastructure. Will the Minister re-e…

I welcome the Tánaiste's reply. The reason I am speaking to the Department is that as well as being agricultural marts employ people and they are enterprises. They are very important, particularly in rural areas. Given the outlay many of them had this year, all I ask is that the Tánaiste re-examines providing an incentive or some type of funding that they may be able to access through the Department.

I acknowledge the Tánaiste has spoken about the submission that has been made and, in fairness to the officials, they spoke to me about this. In the coming weeks there should be an opportunity to show NPHET and the various Departments the flaws or problems in places. We need to concentrate on this to allow a certain number of farmers being able to safely work within a mart. It is our job to prove this to the people to whom we need to prove it but I ask the Tánaiste to be open minded when we look for it again.

No.

Over the past ten years, the national broadband plan has been spoken about, and last year the Tánaiste and other Ministers signed the new contract, which is welcome. The questions with the Minister, Deputy Humphreys, we were dealing with prior to Leaders' Questions were about broadband. Work on this has started in various parts of the country. Some people will say the main contractors got a heavy price or a good price, and it probably is, but I would always say that we need to get broadband in rural Ireland and tha…

I thank the Tánaiste. I fully agree. I am a supporter of broadband right around rural Ireland, especially with Covid, given the number of people who are able to work from home. The quicker we can roll it out, the better and if we could roll it out twice as fast I would be in full support of that. I want to be very clear on that. The Tánaiste said it may go down in price and it is great if it does. The problem at the moment is that there are subcontractors who have basically gone away from it because they could not …

I did not accuse the Tánaiste of anything.

Over recent days, many people in the hospitality sector contacted me to tell me some of their workers who were not able to work have gone on to pharmaceutical or other work, which is a good thing. However, these people are left in a situation where they need to have a plan in place for recruiting new people. They are afraid to take people on because they do not know what will happen for Christmas. I know it is difficult for the Tánaiste to look into the future, but when will there be guidance for the likes of the h…

Even though I spoke to him before, I officially wish the Minister of State the best of luck in his new job. I welcome the opportunity to speak on the Bill. The Government has moved an amendment to the Bill. However, we should not play politics with the Shannon, which covers 11 different counties. There are people tortured in all those counties. I ask everybody to come together. This is about the future. We will not drain the river tomorrow or next week. We will not solve its issues in a few days. We need to come to…

A matter was raised after I left the Dáil yesterday which I want to clarify, and a few more Deputies talked about it. I did not mention any name of a place and I will stand over every bit of information that I stated on Leaders' Questions yesterday. I ask the Minister to clarify that I was not the Deputy he was referring to about scaremongering. I would like that to be clarified because I will stand over everything that I said. I go to the marts, and yesterday cattle came back €150. While farmers were safely social…

We are probably wasting our time. We are just being trampled on with the decisions that are being made. I watched the Minister while the previous speaker was talking. He never got off his telephone. In fairness, the Minister of State, Deputy Butler, is watching the debate. The other issue is the churches. Some 25 people can go to a wedding and 25 can go to a funeral. Some people really wish to go to mass and if 25 people are safe at a funeral, they are equally safe at mass. I will finish with a matter that parents …

It is a pity that the Minister left because many Deputies ran to the Chamber to get answers. I compliment Deputy Carthy on raising the issue of ViraPro. My understanding is that it has been known about for a while. I will let Deputy Carthy talk about that. I would also like to refer to the issue of PCS numbers. We raised this at the Joint Committee on Agriculture and the Marine. Companies have been waiting a hell of a long time to get their PCS numbers. Today, the company that supplies this product said it has an a…

We had understood the Minister, Deputy McConalogue, was coming in to address the situation that has developed with the sanitisers. Would it be fair to ask you that the Minister would come back and address those, either in written form or otherwise? They need to be addressed because I asked serious questions in my contribution.

I am sharing time with Deputy Harkin. I thank Deputy Martin Kenny for bringing this Bill forward as it is worth debating. We must decide what kind of system we are going to have. Will we have a system with the councils or have the joke of a system that we have at the moment right around this country? The Government talks about forestry but we do not have forestry in Ireland at the moment. I will give the Minister of State a statistic. Some 25,000 tonnes of timber logs have been imported from Scotland in the last mo…

Last night I was preparing to raise an agricultural matter but this morning, unfortunately, I got a phone call on my way here from a director of nursing who was distressed and who felt helpless. The person was actually crying because they could not do anything as they were self-isolating. In a nursing home in my constituency, 25 of the 27 residents have tested positive. Unfortunately, one of the residents has died. Of the eight nursing staff, seven have tested positive. Ten of the 11 care assistants have tested pos…

The Tánaiste said he does not know the facts. I am giving him the facts. I did not stand up here to make things up. I have talked to the director of nursing in the nursing home. They have one care assistant and one nurse to try to run that nursing home. These are the facts. Whether the Tánaiste wants to check it somewhere else, that is fine. I do not go telling the Tánaiste something that is not accurate, however. Does he think it is acceptable that the HSE promised staff this morning and they did not come? Does he…

I welcome the opportunity to speak and commend the Regional Group on bringing this motion forward. In the previous Dáil, Deputies Danny and Michael Healy-Rae and the Rural Independent Group brought forward a motion on this matter and nothing was done. I am critical of the IPU. I will be straight about that. I warned two years ago that the ordinary postmaster and postmistress never got an opportunity to see the legal advice on the new contracts being signed. They were rammed down their throats at the time and they w…

Deputy McNamara will speak on the same matter. Level 5 is to come in tonight. I wish to make a plea with the Taoiseach in respect of the livestock sector, where the weanling calves are coming on market in large numbers. In fairness, over the past few months all the marts have run the show online but also ensured that people on site practised safe social distancing. There is now a situation whereby broadband has become a major problem and has broken down at several marts. At least when there was social distancing, t…

In the line of business, there are some good things in the budget. It is welcome. We need to keep people employed in this country. However, I hope it is not cumbersome. That is the one thing I hope for, because if we make it cumbersome the reality is that we will lose many jobs. I love the way figures are done. I have just come from the agriculture committee. Voted expenditure last year was €1.76 billion. We were told the other day that some €179 million extra would be provided for agriculture. Funnily enough, €1.8…

I welcome this opportunity to speak on today's budget. Like most people who have spoken on the supports for businesses affected, I welcome what has been provided. The devil will be in the detail of all of this, however. I state that because many people this evening think that something like €5,000 will jump out to them every week if they are shut down. From what I have seen, however, over the last few years in politics, things do not come that handy. I am fearful of the red tape that will be involved in all of this…