I will not harangue the Tánaiste. He has been asked a lot of questions on the hospitality and drinks sector, and I appreciate that he has an understanding of it. What I will say is that for the Government to show it understands the hammer blow that has been delivered, it should support the sector's employees and enterprises, some of which have now been closed for over 16 weeks. I ask the Tánaiste to confirm that as part of the July stimulus legislation, which will be brought before the House before the recess, the Government will reduce the VAT rate on the hospitality sector, to include on-trade alcohol sales. There are 266,000 people employed in the sector, or 11% of our overall employees. Some 9,300 of these people are in Wexford, which used to have 43 pubs but now has 17. I ask the Tánaiste to confirm that.

I cannot confirm that at this point because the decisions to be made on what will and will not be in the July stimulus will not be made until a Cabinet meeting on Monday or Tuesday. We will make any announcements next week. A reduction in the VAT rate is of little use to pubs that cannot open. The best thing we can do for the sector is to get the pubs open. When a business is closed it does not pay any VAT. The best thing we can do to help pubs and other businesses that have not reopened to reopen over the coming weeks is to go back to doing what we have done really well as a country for a couple of months now, that is, social distancing, handwashing, sneezing and coughing into a tissue, keeping a reasonable distance from other people and wearing masks on public transport and in crowded indoor spaces. If we get back to that, I think the number of new cases will level off. It will stay at perhaps 20 per day, and that will allow us to proceed to phase 4. That is what we need to aim to do.