I again raise the issue of Inland Fisheries Ireland, IFI. I acknowledge the enormous work Senator Kyne has done on this issue. He is exceptionally exercised about it, and rightly so. I take this opportunity to renew our call to the Minister to come before the House. I do not think there is any division in the House regarding this request. It is important that we unify in this House, look at all options and send a very clear message to the Minister for the Environment, Climate and Communications, Deputy Eamon Ryan, that we want him to come to the House to talk about IFI. We do not have to be left, right, centre or divided in the House; let us work together.

Yesterday, I indicated that I intended to bring a motion before House today. On reflection - I thank the Office of the Leader and Senator Kyne in this regard - we will hold off on the motion in the hope that we will get consensus and agreement from the Minister. I want to flag that a motion will come before the House next week. I hope we can unite on it. It is all very well to highlight and talk about issues, but we have the power in the House to send a strong and clear message.

I want to deal with responsibility, accountability, the allocation of budgets and resources and personnel, the importance of integrity, transparency and public concern and the loss of confidence. Even the Minister has lost confidence. Through no fault of his own, he has stood down the remainder of the board. I am not attributing any claim to the remaining members of the board, but there are clearly issues in the organisation. It is to be hoped we can work together and have the Minister in the House to address this.

To suggest the Minister cannot come to the House for a few weeks is not really good enough. Let us work together and show unity in the House, and get the Minister here and put rigorous questions to him. We should subject him to a question-and-answer session on his involvement and the fact he failed to appoint other members to the board.

I support Senator Boyhan with regard to asking the Minister with responsibility for inland fisheries to come to the Chamber. I compliment Senator Kyne on the battle he has fought, going back to last May, in respect of IFI. I see a huge change in what is happening in IFI. I was nominated by IFI to stand for the Seanad on a number of occasions. It is very sad to see what is going on in our inland fisheries as it is a national resource. In the west we have five of the best fishing lakes the country, if not in Europe. The River Moy is one of the best salmon rivers in Europe. There is a lot at stake and, as a matter of urgency, the Minister should come to the House.

I would also like to support Senator Lombard in regard to maintaining the 9% VAT for small restaurants, bars, barbers and other such small businesses. The VAT rate affects small businesses because they cannot increase their costs. They face significant costs which have increased drastically over the past number of months. Keeping the VAT rate at 9% would be a great boost for those people. These businesses are major employers in the country and do not look for anything from the State, in the main. Even if we had to decouple the VAT rate from accommodation, that should be done. I do not see any problem with doing that because there are different VAT rates within the service industry.

There is a different VAT rate for drink than there is for food which is 23% against 9% or 13.5%. So there are different VAT rates within the industry as it is and I do not go along with Revenue when it says it is a problem to charge different VAT rates and that there would be a rush from one type of food to drink or vice versa. I do not agree with that. I support Senator Lombard on that and ask the Government, even if we have to bring the Minister to the House, to do whatever we can to maintain that VAT rate at 9%.