Today, hundreds of bus and coach owners are in Dublin with their buses, at enormous expense to themselves, because they have been shut down and closed off. I completely support the remarks made by Deputies on the previous topic but people will not have buses or coaches to travel to matches if we do not support this very valuable industry. These buses carry all the tourists here and carry people to concerts. Many bus operators in each county carry people shopping to different towns and they also provide a huge service to the schools. There is also a cohort of them that get no payment at all if they do not have a contract with Bus Éireann. We need specific supports and grant aid for these very important, logistical people movers around our country. When the country opens up again, we need them to bring in our tourists and keep industries, towns and entertainment going. They are a very important cohort of people. They are here today and are hardly able to put diesel in their buses. The drivers are probably voluntary because they are all out of work and they do not foresee the wheels turning any time soon. They have huge expenses with insurance and everything else and they need supports.

I too support the coach operators from all around the country who have had to come to Dublin today, though many of them were not able to come. Many large, medium and smaller coach operators in the county I represent have their backs to the wall. They have been hit by insurance costs and they have yards full of buses. The unusual thing is that the bigger the company is the more affected it is, because those massive buses cost an awful lot of money. Every one of them is out on hire purchase or on loan and the operators are in a bad way. We have excellent people in Kerry, including Kerry Coaches, O'Callaghan Coaches and Deros Coach Tours. We have the finest bus operators in Ireland in County Kerry and I am pleading desperately with the Taoiseach to take those people's concerns on board today.

Does Deputy Martin Browne also wish to speak on this matter?

No.

Well then he will have to wait.

A Cheann Comhairle-----

I am coming to everyone. I ask the Deputy to please resume his seat. I call Deputy Tóibín.

I lend my voice to the rake of tour bus operators around the country whose overheads have not reduced, but whose income has been radically reduced. Tour guide operators, which are not bus operators themselves, are also suffering massively. They are saying that loans are not enough and that they need grants to get them through the situation they are in.

In March, I wrote to the then Ministers for Business, Enterprise and Innovation and Transport, Tourism and Sport, and the then Taoiseach as bus operators in my county of Monaghan raised with me the huge concerns that were likely to arise as a result of the restrictions. At that point, it was very clear that bespoke solutions would be required to support bus operators. Those bespoke solutions have yet to materialise and I appeal to the Taoiseach to ensure these companies, which are often vital components of rural economies and are vital to ensuring any form of connectivity in counties like my own, are supported. I ask the Taoiseach to sit down with the relevant Ministers and ensure a bespoke financial support scheme is put in place for bus and coach operators.

I also met a delegation of bus and coach operators last Saturday. It is unfair, in their situation, that bus operators in the Six Counties pay a 0% VAT rate. While some other tourist facilities have been able to get some business this year, the coach and bus operators in tourist areas have been devastated and have no income. I ask the Taoiseach to consider increasing the €10 million that has been allocated to them in order that they will be able to pay their fixed costs for the year.

A number of Deputies are offering so I ask everyone to please be brief. I call Deputy O'Rourke.

I support the comments of previous speakers. The commitment to public transport is fundamental to the programme for Government and private operators play a key role in scheduled services, tourism, tours and school transport. It is an important issue. These providers are honest, decent, hard workers and they deserve the full support of the State.

I ask the Taoiseach to pay particular attention to those who provide school transport. They were left blowing in the wind for months and the Taoiseach is now asking them to step up and support the initiative he announced in recent days. I particularly draw his attention to the plight of bus and coach operators in that sector, especially in rural counties like Donegal who fill significant gaps in the absence of public transport. It is urgent now that he puts in place a package that really gets them back on the road.

I fully support the urgent need for the bus and coach sector to receive grants. This is another sector that is coming under attack. I raised this issue with the former Minister, Shane Ross. I was disappointed that no representatives from this sector were on the tourism task force, which made no sense. We need urgent grants but we also need a harmonisation of the VAT rates because competitors in the Six Counties are at an advantage. Our operators in this part of the island are losing out and I would like that addressed.

The urgency and need for supports was flagged well in advance of the Government’s July stimulus package. It has had ample time to deal with this and most of the operators feel that what the Government has come out with has completely ignored them. Will the Taoiseach outline exactly what he proposes, given the dire financial situation they are in? The financial situation of the school transport operators who expect to be up and running to bring schoolchildren back in September will never be the same again with social distancing on school buses. Can the Taoiseach outline specifically what meaningful measures of support he has in mind for those people?

This is a significant issue of concern as the Taoiseach is hearing now from Deputies. In the past 24 hours I have spoken to two private coach operator providers in my own county of Donegal. There is great anxiety there because they were hoping that there would be some type of rescue plan for them in the July stimulus package. It has not materialised. These are the same companies that have been hit hard as a result of the mortgage payment breaks because they are being penalised with interest being accrued during that period. They cannot refinance their loans through the new credit guarantee unless they take out additional lending, which is not what they need. They need support from the State to make sure that they will be able to go back on the road when the tourism season picks up or when there is a demand for their services again.

On the same issue but with regard to a different group of people, I ask the Taoiseach to support the chauffeur industry. These are a group that have felt forgotten about throughout this pandemic. They are often the first and last point of contact of overseas visitors to Ireland. They collect tourists from the airports, and chauffeur them to hotels, restaurants, festivals and tourism locations across Ireland. Last week, they organised a drive-to-survive from Killarney to Donegal and from there to Dublin via Galway. They mostly drive new, state-of-the-art vehicles on which they have hefty loans and now find themselves with no bookings, a situation which is likely to continue well into 2022. Can the Taoiseach request the relevant Minister to meet with a delegation from the sector to discuss their specific concerns for the future of their industry and the Government supports that they may be able to avail of? Can these packages be available through the July stimulus Bill to help this sector, which has been decimated by the pandemic?