Éamon Ó Cuív urges year-long TWSS for seasonal tourism workers

Goed a mila maagad agus bwail am boeithsaglachle sinéad agus teachtas teacht agus eishtaglomt sa'n ona. Now at the onset of the global crisis the government took immediate action and for that I give credit. But very early on the whole issue of seasonal workers came to the fore particularly in those areas of the country and those sectors of the economy that are traditionally seasonal in this country. And if we particularly look at hospitality and tourism there are many parts of the country that the season runs from Patrick's Day or even Easter in cases through the summer period to various periods in the autumn it may be finishing in late September or Halloween or some go to Christmas. But there are large parts of this industry that do not function throughout the year. As well as that the events industry and other industries would be in a lull period in January, February. Very few festivals are taking place. There wouldn't be as many events on. A lot of industry of that type starts with Patrick's Day. And under the rules of the TWSS or the temporary wage subsidy scheme if you weren't implied in the January, February, March period you weren't entitled to support in the scheme for workers who never worked during that period but always worked for the rest of the year and earned their living by working on the rest of the year. And as well as having a sectoral effect, this has had a huge geographic effect with a disproportionate amount of the economy of places on the west coast of Ireland dependent on seasonal tourism. Places in Osandang in Nigeria or Killarney even all the way up along the west coast through County Clare and the island to be well familiar to the chair and up along to County May up to Donegal. And the reality is unless immediate action is taken a lot of these industries, businesses, hospitality sectors and all of the spin-offs supplying them mightn't survive not through any fault of their own but through lack of support. Now this afternoon we debated at length microfinance useful in its own right but it doesn't fill the gap because for a lot of them borrowing money is not a solution. And Minister, what we need to hear is that the temporary wage subsidy scheme will first of all be extended for at least a year for those industries that will not recover for at least a year that it will be available to those who can show a seasonal pattern of employment every year in other words people who normally hire people in the spring but don't have them in January, February, March that they will be eligible for this scheme and particularly the hospitality industry we also need the cap on the restart grant to be eliminated because it is equivalent in all the hotels to three and a half bedrooms and there are no such hotels in the country. Minister, my time is short I hope that you'll be able to tell me today that the government even at this belated stage will be making an announcement and will not leave these vital industries high and dry and will not leave us in a situation that when tourism comes back that we'll find some of our best assets are no longer functioning. Carmeel Magotek, Ara. Thanks, Eric. I want to thank Deputy O'Keefe for raising this matter and the general area of support for business and support for the hospitality sector but also flagging the issue of seasonal workers which is certainly something that's on our agenda as well. As stated in the programme for government has been referred to by both the Taoiseach and other ministers as well we will bring forward a July jobs initiative shortly to support our economy and help restore employment. Our focus is to support the viability of the business and to get people back to work as quickly as possible in all sectors and including the hospital healthy sector which is a very vital one as well. So I can't confirm what will be in that today but I can confirm it will sorry to have to keep it up for a year but it will be coming forward in the next couple of weeks and it will be announced in July as well and will certainly enhance our offering so far because we're very much committed to supporting business to supporting job creation to supporting business to restart but also to grow and we had a good lengthy discussion on that here today and last night as well so we're very much committed to that as well. Helping our SMEs is central to this given their pivotal role in the economy and employment. The July stimulus will extend enhance and add to the existing measures totaling 12 billion in supports for COVID-19 impacted business already announced. These measures include direct grants and supports such as the temporary wage subsidy scheme as referred to and I'm very conscious of the point you're trying to make in relation to seasonal workers so certainly we will be focusing on that in our work over the next couple of weeks as we bring forward the stimulus plan. The 250 million restart grant fund and again you're looking for changes to that. The liquidity support such as the 0% finance for six months from Microfinance Ireland and as this house passes today and it'll go through the Shanna tomorrow hopefully we can get on with that work around that fund. The rates waivers from local authorities and the warehousing of tax liabilities by SMEs by revenue. These supports are predominantly focused on our SMEs who have been hardest hit by the COVID-19 pandemic. As stated in the Program for Government it is planned that the July Jobs Initiative will set out a pathway for the future of the temporary wage subsidy scheme and in that that will deal with the length of time it might be extended for if it is but also in relation to who can access that. The most important thing that the Government could do was to try to ensure that employees were not laid off and did not lose that all-important link with their employer. Experience shows that the maintenance of the link with an employer is critical to the prospects of a person recovering and resuming employment. The temporary wage subsidy scheme achieves this objective and there are issues around that in relation to seasonal workers part-time workers and so on and they're all being looked at. In addition to the wage subsidy scheme the Government introduced a new payment the Pandemic Unemployment Payment to help individuals who were laid off. These supports and others are now being reviewed in the context of the July Job Simulus and the Economic Recovery Plan which will come forward around the budget time in October. Again, these are key components of the Program for Government and I expect that further announcements will be made in due course. I know Deputy O'Keeve would like me to do that tonight but it's best that it comes forward in the overall stimulus package in the weeks ahead. The issues mentioned by Deputy O'Keeve relating to support for temporary seasonal workers are very much part of the considerations for the future of the wage subsidy scheme and rightly so. As the public health restrictions are eased the challenge for the economy SMEs and all businesses is evolving. Work is currently ongoing around how best to continue to support employers into the more medium term including consideration of support for temporary seasonal workers and new hires. And again, I spoke earlier on about also the new start-ups because people might change career during these times as well. Since it was introduced in March over 65,900 employers have registered with revenue for the temporary wage subsidy scheme and over 58,600 employers have availed of the scheme which is almost a third of all employers from 2019. Over 567,600 jobs have been directly supported over the period and many more indirectly. This is considerable coverage and it's noted that the value of payments made to date is nearly at $2 billion. Changes have also been made to the scheme to allow additional flexibility in the case of lower paid workers to increase the level of subsidy they received for workers returning from maternity, paternity and adoptive leave and for apprentices who were engaged in a period of off-the-job or block-release training in February of this year. The update and the need for the wage subsidy scheme will continue to be monitored as the public health restrictions are eased and the economy continues to recover. Final point, the Restart Grant which was launched on the 22nd of May 2020. The scheme was devised in recognition of the fact that micro and small businesses were particularly vulnerable to the economic effects of COVID-19. To date, there's been applications for $130 million in grants and what's paid out so far is just over $71 million and about another $17 million in the pipeline to go out this weekend. I'd like to thank the Minister for his reply and I would say one thing, the Restart Grant has been paid very promptly and that I welcome. What it was obviously devised with manufacturing business, that type of business in accounting and whatever happened the Department of Tourism didn't make its case very well because rates are a huge part of the overheads of anybody in hospitality, hotels, restaurants and so on. And the one thing we're absolutely certain as long as there's social distancing, even though these businesses are going to be open, they're not going to be able to operate as before and they won't be as profitable as before. So we have to reduce the overheads. Rates or the Restart Grant which is a rebate of the previous year rate is a very obvious first start but we need to lift the cap because it is totally out of sync with reality in the hospitality industry. The second thing is this, if we look at things like tour buses and so on, they're again going to be limited in the number of passengers they carry. So we need to look at the sectors that are going to have long-term restrictions on their ability to trade but isn't it much better to have people working than forced unemployment to make it economic, to have the extra staff and maybe a smaller turnover. And this is where, again, we're a little bit late but don't mind crying over spilt milk now but we need to have an immediate decision on the temporary wage subsidy scheme and it needs to continue for constrained businesses that can't go back to business as usual. It needs to continue for as long as two constraints exist. One is the physical constraints because of health advice and the other is the business constraints because, for example, in everything to do with tourism and it goes way beyond the actual tour providers, there are no foreign tourists here this year and we know that there's a huge reluctance from people to travel from abroad anywhere in the world going out of the island we find the same thing and we need to deal with those issues. One final point for the indulgence, Chair. I welcome the fact that people who have booked holidays abroad had their deposits guaranteed. I find it hard to understand and maybe the Minister would address this why people, tour operators that were taking deposits of people coming into the country didn't get the same guarantee under deposits. Thank you. Go on, Omed. Again, just to conclude and to add to the comments I made earlier on, Deputy O'Keefe rightly raised the ongoing area of the tourism and hospitality sector. So, again, regarding any further targeted measures specifically aimed at the tourism and hospitality sector, in March 2020, a dedicated tourism recovery task force was established made up of leaders of various sectors of the industry with whom will work together with whom will work together to deal with the many challenges ahead has been specifically tasked by identifying measures required to enable Irish tourism to recover from the devastating effects of COVID-19. So, naturally, their work will feed into the stimulus plan in July but also into the long-term recovery plan in line with the budget in October as well. And around that space, we do welcome any comments or any suggestions and the tolerance to yesterday when he was addressing the House on the microfinance loan bill did ask anybody to bring forward suggestions or ideas that we'll tease out and that will feed into the plan and work has been ongoing in our department and across other departments as well for that July stimulus plan and naturally and you've rightly identified some of the issues that might affect the hospitality sector with the existing schemes. So, all existing schemes and all efforts we've made since the start of COVID and the response to that, they're all being reviewed as well and being checked for tweaks or changes we can make to enhance them but certainly to add to that as well. So, any suggestions you have, I'd certainly feed in what you've raised tonight, Deputy O'Keefe, but anything else you have you can feed into it as well because we're happy to do that and again we do want to build on we're conscious that we've committed over 12 billion of taxpayers' money already to support but we know and everyone in this house knows that won't be enough we need to add to that and we're very much committed to doing that as well so there will be a package for our forward later this month but also we'll build on that and we look forward to working with Deputy O'Keefe and all who represent the hospitality sector to bring forward long-term plans as well because this is not going to be an immediate recovery for some of these areas certainly we can do immediate interventions to certainly help and to aid and help them survive but the long-term growth we need to commit long-term to this as well and that's something that we will do I look forward to working with the house on that Thank you