Small business and living costs
The Leader returned to Senator Mullen’s abortion remarks, then responded to Senator McCarthy by acknowledging the strain rising costs place on small businesses while noting recent protections and supports for workers.
If the Senator wants detail on that, she can put down a Commencement matter on it.
Senator Mullen spoke on the eighth amendment. I spoke on that at the start. He spoke about empathy for little children. I think most people have empathy in general but people have different viewpoints. Some people have empathy for women going through difficult pregnancies.
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I have both. However, I understand and take the Senator’s view and concerns genuinely, and his consistency on the matter.
Senator McCarthy spoke about small businesses and rising costs. That is a real challenge for businesses. A lot of businesses are under huge pressure but want to continue because they do not want their staff to lose their jobs. Often, they are hardly making ends meet and just surviving. We have made a lot of changes for employees in recent years in relation to the minimum wage, sick pay and pensions. All these are the right things to do. They support people on a lower wage and support people to have a pension. We should do this and it is the right thing to do, but we have to remember that it comes at a massive cost to employers. That is why the Minister, Deputy Burke, has made some changes in relation to pausing sick pay in particular and not putting it up to ten days. It is why he is introducing the 9% VAT rate in the hospitality sector, including hairdressers and others. We need to have a balance in that and make sure we support people on low pay, in particular, and make it worthwhile to work. At the same time, we need to recognise these costs have a huge impact on businesses and they need to be supported as well. The Senator asked for a debate on that and I am more than happy to do that.