Mattie McGrath: Urges Action for Small Shops, Gyms and Hairdressers

Question for you as well, if you don't get a time to reply, send them in writing to us, please. Can you submit a written question? Of course we can, and we do, and we do all the time. Minister, it has been said already, small businesses are the backbone of rural Ireland, and indeed all of Ireland, and the small businesses including clothes shops. I walk down Grafton Street this evening and I see big trading outlets open. Why are small shops, especially with clothes industry, told to clothes? Yet the big supermarkets and all can sell the clothes. It's unfair competition, and the brands, and as my daughters will tell me, the different seasons are running past, and the stock that they have for that is out of date and not wanted. That's totally unfair to small business. It's a case a big business wins again. Many, many gyms, and indeed I have been in touch with his gym in Clonmel, and indeed Strength, you know, it's a wonderful gym. But it's a spacious gym, and I'm not disrespecting any other gyms, but one size doesn't fit all in the gyms either. Where they can have one-to-one training, so they're, I think, stage five of the roadmap. Is there any possibility of them being examined individually, and where they have the safety, like there's three and a half thousand, you know, square metres of a gym. It's a massive gym, and places like that they can. Minister Headresters, I want to thank you for contacting and speaking to Willie Walsh Clonmel. A household name in Clonmel, a hairdresser, does tremendous work himself and his family business run for years, making strident efforts to recover there. I could deal with a visitor myself at the moment, but I have to depend on family or someone to give me a trim. And, but, but, no, he's done huge work there to try and safe distance and have hygiene and everything else, and they want to be able to treat. Otherwise, they're going to go into business. Well, you have the loans. These people never look for loans, never look for grants, never look for handouts. They put their hands in their pockets, they'll sleep this night, they'll put the investments in. Minister, I hope that you will. And the black market is, in this area especially, is, is thriving and shameful. And I said it before, and I say it again on the record, that people are caught in the black market should be dealt with seriously. And I said it before, and some people took offence of me that some of them are not Irish nationalists, and they should be deported if they're caught at this, because they've been, they've been called to buy the guarantee and are blatantly ignoring it. And it's not good enough. The fact, and the grants, and the cash flow for small businesses, especially the tourism businesses, the many of them, the staycations this year should be promoted as well, Minister, and all those areas should be supported. We have the Lazy Bean in Caire, a wonderful outlet, a meeting place, a hub in the square in Caire, and Karen O'Donovan and her team work so well there. It'll be almost, it'll be very difficult to social distance, but look, trial and error here, and I hear claims, normally from someone I have left here, about all employers must be visitors and everything, it's a hard time, we must have a support, the Nath, the Curl, and the Cail, and support these traders. Without these vibrant businesses in our towns and villages, the economy won't recover. And we must give a kind of a cash injection to people to be able to spend money as well, to allow them to go out and spend money and encourage them. Too much of the gloom and locking up, Minister, hotels, hotels and businesses, every business I mentioned, insurance. Deputy, no one mentioned insurance, I mentioned the banks with them. The banks are withdrawing mortgages left, right and centre, because people are on the COVID payment, and they're at the placarding once again, and I call it, nothing about placarding. As for the insurance minister, they know that you're soft touch, they know that your government hasn't tackled insurance fraud and robbery and rip-off with the last 10 years, and the government before you either, big business. We see all the things they sponsor, why can't they give a rebate, and why can't they have some bit of respect for the customers who have to pay up, and always want to pay? Minister, your colleague, I have a hotel in Manila in Tarmel, a fabulous business, but ran by the Nannan family there for generations, and they've been so good and kind in organising anything that was wanted from the HSE staff or anybody else. Now they're organising with Louise Morrissey and others, visitors, and Paddy Doherny, to visit Nottingham's, this lovely weather we had, and play out in the garden for the residents to look out. Some were able to come out and engage, I want to thank them for that. But the standing charges, the rates, and indeed, Minister, the sheer cost of utilities, they'll have to be supported. These facilities have piles of bookings and they're stopped. I know Deputy, I already mentioned, I want to mention, the pharma industry in South Tipperay is the hub of it. And across the border, Pinewood Laboratories in Ballam and Calgary, Tarmel Healthcare, and I'd have to mention Comida, pharma industry, business in Tarmel, who have done huge voluntary work and who put their hands in their pockets everything in their ass to support different nations, and David Angell there and his team. Minister, we also need to do something with the driving test. Minister Ross came out of his cocooning, committed it all yesterday. I was lucky I wasn't here because I'd blow a fuse. He said he wants public transport. He's astonished why public transport isn't moving, the lewes and the buses. Yet, he says, people can't get the driving test. People who want to walk in front line can't get the driving test. Yet, the NCTs aren't going to open. They can surely safe distance. What, is it all about Dublin? And the bus in from wherever he lives, out in the leafy suburbs of Dublin. I mean, they can, as safe as anybody else, the motorbike testers they drive behind in the car. Young people want to start and get their license. They're waiting for years. Many of them have the theory test and the lessons done, ready to go. They can't have a company and driver with them, I'm sure, now. So, the gas should be leaning in there as well about this new law. They passed the Glanty Amendment that they have to have, and at all times have to have a company and a full license. Because they can't sit in the car if that's the situation. So, we need to be real here. And I'm appealing to you, Minister, you understand the country how it takes to have influence on some of your Dublin-centric colleagues. That rural Ireland exists and will recover, if we're allowed to recover, not stifled and hidden. Thank you.