We are very fortunate that we have a great network of supermarkets and other food stores of varying sizes in our towns and villages. The stores are predominately very modern with high standards of hygiene and good service for customers. Those retailers are very concerned about the small business support scheme. They state very clearly that the measures proposed in the budget will not be of enough assistance to them to meet rising costs and some of those costs are attributable to Government decisions. The exclusion of businesses paying more than €20,000 in rates is causing particular problems. Those businesses are labour-intensive and energy is a substantial percentage of their overall trading loss. They need to obtain additional Government support to trade profitably and retain existing staffing complements. I spoke a supermarket owner in my constituency who has two very good stores that employ 160 people. He said he will not be in a position to trade profitably enough to retain present staffing levels or indeed to recruit additional staff, as he had hoped to do.

The Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment, Deputy Coveney, has been allocated €250 million to establish a scheme to help businesses with rising costs to cushion the blow of rising costs and to enable them to retain their staff. To put it in context, €250 million is twice the amount claimed under the temporary business energy support scheme this year, so it is a very substantial allocation. The Minister, Deputy Coveney, and the Minister of State, Deputy Calleary, are working on the detail of the scheme so the money can be paid in the new year, but as is always the case, we have to draw the line somewhere and the more large or medium-sized businesses we bring into it, the less there will be for the very small businesses. That is something the Minister and Minister of State are working on at the moment.