I thank the Tánaiste and his ministerial colleagues for all the work they have done in putting in place significant supports for our small business sector. Unfortunately, there are thousands of self-employed people running small businesses in this country who are finding it exceptionally difficult, if not impossible, to gain access to those supports because of the way in which they were initially designed. The Tánaiste and Dr. Mike Ryan have often made the case that speed trumps perfection, and in this instance it was incredibly important to get those supports in place for our businesses. We have €50 million residing in Fáilte Ireland and we have €50 million residing in the Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media. Up to 7,000 people in the entertainment sector who are self-employed and a number of small businesses in the hospitality sector cannot gain access to those funds because of the criteria associated with them. Can we do an audit to determine how much of those funds have been expended in support of small businesses? Can we look at the many examples of small businesses that have been in touch with us to tell us why they cannot access those funds? Can we look to innovate and amend the scheme?

This kind of falls between my Department and the Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media. On my side, we are reviewing our schemes with a view to consolidating them. We have some very good schemes such as the employment wage subsidy scheme, EWSS, which helps with payroll, the Covid restrictions support scheme, CRSS, which helps with the fixed costs of running a premises if it has been closed, low cost loans, reduced VAT rates, and so on. In my Department, we are looking in particular at whether we need a new scheme for those businesses that have a premises but do not qualify for the CRSS because they are not open to the public and therefore were never closed to the public but whose trade is down 75% or 80% nonetheless. We are working on a scheme for them. I know the Minister, Deputy Catherine Martin, has quite a considerable amount in her budget for this year and plans to develop those schemes in January and February.