Matt Shanahan urges caution as pandemic supports unwind

I welcome the opportunity there just to speak on this bill which I know Minister O'Donoghue outlined covers a range of financial measures but I think it has to be acknowledged in terms of and other deputies have spoken about them the pandemic supports which were brought in and I sit on the enterprise committee and certainly we were asking government for quite a while for a number of different supports and I think in the end we didn't get it right from the start but I think later on particularly the Chris and the eWiz were of great help to employers they allowed them to keep certainly their employees on hand in the case of hospitality it allowed them to to generate outdoor seating and all of that which was a great help to in the summertime to get them up and going and to give them some very much needed revenue and I think the eWiz is being as we know it's being round down our minister but I would say to you that we need to be somewhat careful in how we do that I know we won't have a cliff edge that runs out I think until April but just the same there may well be businesses who are going to be continue to be impacted and who may find that the return to profitability is taking a lot longer than they would have thought also the issue of debt warehousing which has been discussed here tonight and again this is a very important measure to allow businesses to park up debt at a very difficult time on them to face payments to revenue and for those now up in April of this year okay that debt falls due and if it can't be paid I'm glad here to see that government is extending a zero interest rate out to 2023 and from then on a three percent interest rate to kick in after and that's as it should be because as I say it's going to be very hard for a lot of businesses and to really get back in to get thriving and they need to have low levels of debt and certainly low levels and flexible levels of interest repayment Minister O'Donog said in his opening remarks that the the basis on offering these schemes was built on the prudent financial management of years previously and I would agree with that statement Minister and as I say as we go to unwind these supports now we have to be mindful of how they are going to impact the bill also covers the final payment of a thousand euro tax free to frontline workers and nursing staff and Minister I'd ask you to confirm in your closing speech that this will be extended to section 38 and 39 healthcare workers and those working in the disability sector they have done sterling work offering respite offering home supports and and they need to be recognized I think it's very important that they would along with those obviously working in the nursing home sector I see also in the media talk of a scheme to offer compensation to those health workers and families who tragically lost their lives during COVID and I welcome that scheme also Minister I think the number is about 23 in this country and every one of those is a tragic case because it is a case of somebody who was coming to the aid of somebody else using all of their their training and their expertise to try and help other people and not realizing that they ultimately will become a victim to COVID so and we send certainly sincere condolences to the family so impacted and I have a family that I know quite well myself who lost a family member a healthcare worker during the COVID crisis Minister I don't know who mentioned that the economy was just beginning to open up and I think we saw that as we're trying to throw off the shackles of COVID now albeit that we know COVID is not gone and we've seen in recent the last week again COVID numbers are around there appears to be a new variant of Omicron going around and having the first variant doesn't mean that you're immune from the second so we do have to continue to practice a reasonable degree of I suppose all of the flexibility that we had before wearing masks in particular trying to observe sanitation where possible and sanitiser and I suppose being very mindful that again it is the older cohorts and those with underlying illness who are most at risk here Minister we're now facing into a probably another perfect storm which is the Ukraine war that President Putin has decided to unleash and we're well aware of the terrible tragedy that this is delivering on the Ukrainian people and our hearts absolutely go out to the Ukraine people and we must do everything possible in this country to try and offer support which I believe we are doing and I welcome as I said in the House in recent days the actions of government and the actions of heroes within the Irish people who are presently now trying to campaign trying to gather up goods and some who are travelling over to Poland and even into Ukraine to try and offer their support but this is going to give significant headwinds to our economy Minister and we've just seen I know we'll have a vote tonight on the fuel increases and on the rebates to fuel and I think it's welcome but will it be enough and my sense is it won't be enough and we I hope we'll be back here soon again because certainly for agriculture and for the heavy goods industry you know where fuel prices are gone is making it untenable to continue operating in respect of Ukraine I know we have the Irish Red Cross leading out on accommodation of pledges which is very welcome and I know we've had a very significant donation of pledges I think over 70,000 in recent days have been offered of different levels of accommodation and support and certainly we need administer a fast-track system which I think we have now PPS numbers to be issued quickly to people arriving here so they can avail of public service payments accommodation where required and also to get schooling for children but I think Minister it's impossible to overstate the crisis that's presently coming our way if this Ukraine war is to extend in terms of our food crisis and we have a particular issue in that and I said this in the house last week we have Russia and Ukraine between them accounting for nearly 30 percent of world grain supplies and in actual fact in this country we do very little production of grain that can actually make flour we have only one flour milling company in the country and and they do about 20 percent of their turnover is based on their own manufacturing the rest of the flour they actually buy in and this is for baking bread in this country so we can do flour all right for biscuits but not for bread and I think we are going to see a very significant uptick in the cost of bread in the shops and this is going to impact vulnerable households very very quickly there's also the issue I know Minister McConnell met with farm leaders yesterday minister in terms of tillage and fodder and there was talk of a tillage order but I'm afraid that is not going to work out for a whole range of reasons not least that there's a number of EU directives that would have to be bypassed in order to allow a tillage order to take place and secondly we have a significant headwind now in terms of fertilizer costs and I was just looking before I came into the house there calcium ammonia nitrate which was 390 euros per tonne only about four months ago is now 1200 tons on a spot rate today and can go to 1400 euro per tonne and the same with urea and ammonia was 600 and tonne 600 euro a tonne that's now at a thousand and heading higher again on a spot rate and we see that the Norwegian large fertilizer manufacturer has signaled that they are reducing their operations simply because they're not sustainable with the price of natural gas so I think it's fair to say that Vladimir Putin has set up the EU community from quite a long way back he has allowed us to become totally dependent on his gas and on his oil and even unwittingly ourselves in terms of our climate policy we agreed to go forward with that construct and I think minister we are going to have to look at that now very very significantly Minister O'Donogh said that the employment was now closed back to 2.5 million euro in the economy but I think we can expect significant headwinds again to that number and certainly in terms of the economic stability of a lot of businesses so as I say minister I think a new energy policy is going to be needed I have concerns and I said this in the house recently that we are going to turn around in May and add further carbon prices onto fossil fuels and thereby adding to the inflation already in the economy and secondly we see what America is now doing with liquid natural gas upping their capacity at the same time while we have turned our back on it and we seem to be putting all our hopes on renewable energy on solar farms which we haven't yet developed and we're talking about onshore and offshore wind and minister anybody who studied the wind problem at the moment will realise that we are probably minimum 10 years away in this country from being able to offer ourselves any type of offshore wind solution that means we're basically open to conglomerates from abroad who will come in here and very likely we will still be paying a very high price for energy despite the fact that it will be created on and off our shores and beyond that minister we know we have a significant problem in housing and again this is something that now needs to be addressed in light of where we're going with Ukraine and I wonder minister have we looked at the idea of creating a housing bond almost like a war bond in this country we have a lot of money we were told sitting on deposit in this country and whether it can be put to use I know of a number of builders who are revealing of builder finance from larger builders simply because they cannot get a builder finance from the pillar banks and minister they are paying up to 10 per cent per annum APR on builder finance which is making it unsustainable then for them to go at building not withstanding where the costs in materials supply is going so we have a major emergency and I think we have to do more than we are presently doing I think Ireland is facing as I say some particular difficulties we have to hope that they will be short-lived that the Ukraine crisis can be resolved through diplomacy and that we can get back onto a footing where we were which is trying to build for the future recover from covert and build sustainability into our economy and certainly there are opportunities but there are threats minister and I think it's most important particularly now where we're going that the government would engage with all the deputies in the house I'm not sure it was done during the covert crisis in fact I can tell you it wasn't and there's significant expertise in other members of the house here and into contacts and people that they have and I think it's be holding on government now given where we are to start talking to all of the deputies in this house in terms of advancing future government policy