Our tourism and hospitality industries are in the gutter and absolute crisis mode. Rural Ireland is experiencing a season like never before. Restaurants, bars, souvenir shops, jarveys, bike rentals and many many more small family run businesses are more often empty than full We will experience closures like never seen before in this country this winter if this government does not act quickly. We have lost all competitiveness due to spiralling costs driving up prices. Reducing the VAT is not the answer to solve immediate problems that need addressing straight away. It doesn’t matter what the VAT rate is if we have no one in our businesses I really hope @peterburkefg and his team listened to what I said when we met and took on board my recommendations. It is now extremely scary and many small businesses can not sustain the costs they have incurred over the last 4-5 years. If these businesses close forever, the cost to the state will be far more than what it would cost to solve this mess once and for all I am not confident at all that the actions will be carried out but I hope there’s still time to convince them what needs to be done You will see businesses close from September onwards. It won’t be pretty by any means