John Deasy (Waterford, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

That is fair enough. I presume Mr. Lynch understands my point that things have changed and are changing rapidly with regard to small businesses in this country. There is also a difference between Dublin and the rest of the country as regards the size of the economy. I refer to the implications of this revaluation on businesses that are barely hanging on. My concern is that this needs to be done in depth and in a timely manner in order to gauge the kind of impact it will have on those small businesses. That policy decision will need to be fed into the entire process and the legislation being considered by the Oireachtas. If that means staggering payments, then there will be a funding issue for local authorities and the resultant deficits. The situation is moving quickly and this needs to be taken into consideration.

The damage that this revaluation process will do to businesses in Waterford city and the county is very considerable. Dungarvan has an ARV which is lower than the county rate. As a result of amalgamation and the abolition of town councils, it is expected that there will be a harmonisation - a wonderful word which means an increase - in the ARV to the county rate, potentially. In that case, Dungarvan will move to the Waterford County Council rate. This is a double whammy in that businesses will have to face that and then have to suffer a revaluation and an increase. The Valuation Office impact analysis needs to take that into consideration. In my opinion, nobody in Government has thought about that up until the meeting I had last Tuesday with the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform. Those are really serious issues which are causing upset to businesses. They do not believe that the Government is taking a holistic view of the issue and the impact this may have on their businesses.