I also want to ask about the July stimulus package, which we all know is needed to assist businesses in the reopening of the economy and the months ahead. We all agree on this. I want to ask what businesses will be expected to do for the State in return for all of the support the State is giving to them. It is a two-way street and it is not simply enough that they come out of the crisis in reasonable shape. The State must also be in reasonable shape. In return for the support we, as the State, are giving to them they need to support the workers who make their businesses a success. I do not believe a business can survive without the support of its workforce. Indeed, it is the workforce that makes many businesses viable. It is not simply through supporting entrepreneurs or business people that we will recover; it is also by supporting workers and linking the survival of workers and their families to the success of the State.

Too often in recent weeks, as people have returned to work, I have heard stories of businesses using the crisis to reduce wages without consultation. In one business, management has made many people redundant and is availing of the wage subsidy scheme for the remainder of employees. It is also using the crisis to reduce the remaining wages by 10% for everybody across the board, for which workers are already getting the wage subsidy. In another employment, management has taken on a new policy whereby all the workers return to work on the wage subsidy alone. While this may be okay, as the Tánaiste has said to me previously, it is a betrayal of workers and the State.

We need to get to a new way of thinking in this country, whereby we can acknowledge that business is important for the success of the economy but an engaged workforce is important for the success of business. This is key. The Tánaiste and the Government can make this happen. After all, I know the Tánaiste has the well-being of our people at heart. My question is simple. Will the Tánaiste make the jobs stimulus package work for workers also and ensure they, as well as their employment, will be able to survive?

I thank the Deputy. The answer to the question is "Yes". If he looks at what we have done so far, I announced a package of approximately €12 billion to respond to the coronavirus. This is leaving aside the health costs. This approximately €12 billion is for supports for business and employees. Not all of this has been drawn down yet but the bulk of it that has been drawn down is the wage subsidy scheme, which subsidises the wages of workers, and the pandemic unemployment payment, which provides a welfare payment to people who have been laid off. The vast majority of the money we have spent so far has been targeted at people who have lost their jobs or people whose jobs only exist now because they are being subsidised.

The amount we have given to business in grants and loans is much less than that. In fact, I believe we need to do better in terms of the grants and loans we give to business, and we intend to do that next week. The focus has been on people who have lost their jobs and ensuring that more people do not lose their jobs.

Businesses do a great deal for us already. They create much employment and they pay a large amount of tax. We are able to fund our education, health and justice systems, as well as public infrastructure and everything else, from all the taxes businesses pay. I might be wrong about this and there may be exceptions but I do not believe there are many employers in this country who are taking advantage of this crisis to reduce people's wages or terms and conditions. There might be examples and we must expose and tackle those people, but in the vast majority of cases where employers are seeking pay reductions it is because they have no choice. Their business is down 50%, 60% or 70% and they will be in a loss making position this year. Part of what they must do to survive is reduce their costs, and it is very regrettable when that has to happen. However, it has to be better than the business failing and all those people being laid off.

I thank the Tánaiste, but people staying at work for wages on which they and their families cannot survive is not good for them either. What we must do is change the dynamic whereby businesses in partnership with their workers will survive. That is the reality.

The Tánaiste has consulted and met IBEC, the Small Firms Association, ISME, Chambers Ireland, SME Recovery Ireland and a range of State bodies, including Enterprise Ireland, local enterprise offices, Fáilte Ireland, the Strategic Banking Corporation of Ireland, the Ireland Strategic Investment Fund, the Central Bank, Microfinance Ireland and the Credit Review Office, but he should have meetings with workers and workers' representatives as well. Then he will hear about the businesses that are capitalising on the crisis and using it as an excuse to make workers pay by cutting wages. There is no doubt that a workplace might have to reduce wages, but it should do that in consultation with the workers and recognise that its workers are vital to the survival of that workplace. That is what the State should be doing as well. We should be creating that dynamic. I ask the Tánaiste and the Government to start that ball rolling and to use the July stimulus to make that happen.

I will be doing that next week. My meetings next week include meetings with unions, including the Irish Congress of Trade Unions. I will certainly listen to what they say in that regard. In my previous occupation I did that regularly and will do so in this role as well. I am the Minister with responsibility for enterprise, trade and employment, not just enterprise. I mean that.

We can change the dynamic and the philosophy all we like, and I understand what the Deputy means when he speaks about that, but there is one dynamic that we cannot change. For a business to survive, it must take in more money than goes out of the business. That is the bottom line. A business might get away with running at a loss for a few months and perhaps even for a year or two but, fundamentally, for any business to survive and have any employees at all its income must match or exceed its outgoings. If it does not, the business will fail. The business will close and people will lose their jobs. We do not want that to happen.