Small businesses are going through the most horrendous time, especially in the past few months. Cafés, restaurants, pubs and family hotels are closing at an alarming rate. Hundreds have already closed this year. Businesses the length and breadth of the island are pleading for help in an effective way but to date, the call has gone unheeded by the Government. Last week, the Government stated it intends to help small businesses by providing grants, advice and mentoring. Grants may help, but for these businesses, some of which have been in operation for decades, advice and mentoring is an insult to their intelligence.

Last week, on the front page of the west Cork Southern Star, a national campaign for the VAT rate to be reduced was launched by businesses throughout west Cork. This campaign, called VAT 9 Now, run by Jamie Budd of Budd's restaurant in Ballydehob, Peter Shanahan of the Fish Basket in Long Strand Beach, Gavin Moore of Monk's Lane, Timoleague, Aisling O'Leary and Forbes Kelly of Revel, Clonakilty and Vic Sprake and Deborah Ní Chaoimhe of Camus Farm outside Clonakilty. This campaign is gaining support from hospitality businesses all over the country. The VAT rate returned to 13.5% from 9% for the hospitality and tourism industry in September 2023, although I and others pleaded with the Government at that time and beforehand, stating it would have devastating consequences for important businesses in every town and village. This destructive increase, combined with spiralling energy costs, increases in food costs and the minimum wage, are bringing already tight margins for these businesses to the point of being unviable.

Businesses have now been saying for months that the Government does not realise the effect of the VAT increase that almost doubled, plus all other costs associated with running a business, including energy costs that no one has control of and the minimum wage that no one expects to decrease. However, the Government has control over the VAT rate and the call is to immediately drop it back to 9%. If it does not, more and more of these businesses will go under. One of the business people in the group I mentioned said it is a hugely testing time for the sector, that their margins are at breaking point and that it is disheartening because they love what they do, but they cannot be busy fools. They worked long hours through Easter and having paid everything out, little is left. These businesses pay rent, rates, electricity bills, water bills, wastewater bills, waste bills, wages, suppliers, maintenance, insurance bills and most damaging, the VAT bill. These café, restaurant, pub and family hotel owners are asking how many of these businesses have to close before the Fine Gael, Fianna Fáil and Green Party Government will wake up and understand the crisis they are in. Surely, those at the top are not so disconnected that they have no idea what is happening on the ground. Are the backbencher TDs and Senators telling the Government anything? I will ask a straight-up question on behalf of the VAT 9 Now action group from west Cork, which has gone national. Will the Taoiseach support the return of the VAT rate to 9% from 13.5% this week, thus giving these businesses a small boost before the summer season? It would be a boost that may see them survive. Anything else coming from the Taoiseach today will be devastating for these businesses.

I thank Deputy Collins for raising the important matter of small businesses and especially mentioning a number of them in what we call the hospitality sector, cafés, restaurants, pubs and others. I fully accept they have been struggling to absorb significant costs and have been operating in an environment of high inflation, rising costs and a number of charges that have come at them all at once. When I talk to many of them, it is not that they believe any of the initiatives are bad. They want to do well by their employees as it helps them to retain staff. The key to a good business is to look after the workforce. However, at the same time they are trying to make ends meet. I acknowledge that and I want to work with them and like-minded Deputies in this House to see how we can do that.

Our newly appointed Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment, Deputy Peter Burke, is looking at a range of ways in which we can try to support businesses, small businesses in particular, and, most importantly, how we can provide them with certainty about what the next few years look like. I certainly heard clearly, as have my colleagues, that they want to know whether they will have to pay even more costs, so it is quite important to try to provide them with certainty about what the next few years will look like.

We already have a scheme in place worth €250 million. Deputy Collins will be aware of this increased cost of business scheme and the €250 million currently being given out. Today, 34,000 businesses will have applied, but there are a few more than 140,000 businesses that could benefit from it. I encourage every Member of the House to please get the message out in their constituencies to all businesses that they can apply for this grant. It is easy to apply for, low on bureaucracy. Very little paperwork is involved. Let us get money immediately into the bank accounts of small businesses.

We have also kept in place the VAT cuts for gas and electricity and increased the VAT threshold level, which has helped many small businesses. The Minister, Deputy Peter Burke, is also working on an energy efficiency grant that will significantly help businesses with the cost of energy.

Deputy Collins specifically raised the issue of the VAT rate. It is truthful of me to say, it is a factual position, that issues around VAT and tax rates in general are matters that are considered in the budget. They remain issues we will continue to consider and the Government will make decisions on all tax and spending matters in the budget, but we will not wait until the budget to act to help small businesses. To anyone watching these proceedings, especially small business owners, there are more than 100,000 businesses eligible for financial support from the Government. I ask them to please apply and let us get that money into their bank accounts and to know that in the next few weeks we will be working to put more measures in place. Crucially, we will also be working-----

Rubbish

-----to provide policy certainty as to what the next few years will look like with respect to the cost of doing business in Ireland.

I thank the Taoiseach for his reply.

The Taoiseach said he fully accepted the sector is struggling. Unfortunately, VAT is the problem here. The Government does not seem to understand that since the VAT rate went up, restaurants and cafés all over the country are shutting down. Door after door is banging shut. The Taoiseach does not grasp the crisis here. On his election as Taoiseach last week, I listened carefully to him to see if he was going to be different or more of what we have had before. Lowering the VAT rate is where he could have shone but he did not. Other than promises, we got nothing, which means more of the same.

How many cosy cafés, neighbourhood restaurants and pubs will close before the penny drops? How will our towns and villages look with more shuttered premises? The Government has to lower the VAT rate now and not kick the can down the road to October. That will not do. The new group will protest about the VAT rate. I promise the Taoiseach that this is not just a west Cork protest but a national one. I will ask again. Will the Taoiseach lower the VAT rate from 13.5% to 9%? Will he announce that today? If not, I promise the Taoiseach that the Government will face wipeout in the upcoming elections. People are angry. They are shutting their doors.

I thank Deputy Collins.

They are fighting to create employment but losing jobs and income. Employees are losing their jobs and they are furious wherever I go in the country.

The people will decide the outcome of the elections, not Deputy Collins's utterances in the Dáil. I would never be so arrogant as to tell the people what they are going to do in an election; maybe Deputy Collins should not either. It is not helpful to come at this with a suggestion that there is one way of helping businesses and if we do not do it this way, we do not care at all. That is oversimplistic. To be frank, if anybody understands the importance of balancing the books, doing a budget and living within a budget, it is businesses. The Government has to work like that as well. The Government produces-----

The Government is trying to stifle them.

Deputy, please.

The Government produces a budget in this House each year. The budget is then voted upon by Members of this House and the country lives within its budget. We have done that, and it has provided economic certainty to businesses. It has provided a situation where we have full employment. It has provided a situation-----

Plenty of them have closed.

-----where we have been able to set surpluses aside and provide €250 million of assistance to small businesses in Ireland today. It is worth saying in this House today that 140,000 businesses are eligible and only 34,000 or thereabouts have applied so far. We need everybody who is eligible-----

It should be repackaged.

Please, Deputy.

-----to get this money in their bank account. The Government is seeking to give people financial assistance and we are saying we will not stop there. We are going to do more around energy efficiency. We have increased the VAT threshold. We have left the gas and electricity VAT cuts in place for the time being. We are also looking at how we can provide certainty. The big thing I hear from small businesses is that they want to know what is next in terms of costs and whether there are more coming at them. I assure them that the Government will only pursue policies in the weeks and months ahead that will support small businesses and their viability.