Mary Upton (Dublin South Central, Labour)

I wish to share time with Deputies Brian O'Shea, Jan O'Sullivan, Seán Sherlock and Joe Costello.

Businesses in Ireland have been placed under enormous stress since 2008. Despite plenty of warnings, the Government has taken little or no action to prevent major employers such as Dell, Waterford Crystal or SR Technics from leaving Ireland, the result being thousands of redundancies. As a result of these job losses and closures, thousands of workers have no option but to join the ever expanding queues at the social welfare offices up and down the country. The Government continued with this approach with jobs in Cadbury's under threat and when 300 jobs were lost in the hangar 6 fiasco.

The Government pins its hopes on bailing out the banks. So far, we have put €11 billion into the banks, not including NAMA. It is estimated that we may have to put an additional €10 billion to €15 billion into our banks once their loans have been transferred to NAMA. What do the citizens of Ireland get for all of this? Increased lending charges, bankers telling us to tighten our belts and no lending to businesses.

Despite the blather from the Government that NAMA was necessary to get credit flowing, the opposite is happening. A reply to a parliamentary question from the Tánaiste stated: "There is no doubt that banks are making significant credit available to businesses." The facts speak for themselves: the ISME bank watch survey from 1 March showed that 55% of businesses were refused funding. This compares to 42% in October 2009 and 20% in May 2008. According to Central Bank statistics, private sector credit declined by 6% in the year to December 2009. Whatever the Government's stated ambition to get credit flowing, it has not worked.

This Labour Party Bill is about protecting jobs and businesses by allowing for a downward review of commercial rents on existing leases. Consumer spending has collapsed from the highs of 2006 to 2007 and will not recover for a long time. Since footfall and spending is down, businesses must cut their costs. We have a crazy situation here in Ireland where existing rents can only be reviewed upwards.

During the boom, Dublin was one of the most expensive places to rent in the world. By contrast today, Irish towns and cities are blighted by abandoned shops. One of the most disgraceful practices that is occurring is that a number of landlords are attempting to substantially increase their rents despite the economic reality whereby almost every business has a substantially reduced turnover on the Celtic tiger levels. It seems that some of these landlords are increasing rents in order to make the valuation stronger when they are transferred to NAMA. Dundrum Town Centre is planning to increase rents by 60% in 2010 and the Pavilion in Swords has attempted to increase rents by 100%.

Small enterprise and local shops are shedding jobs and going quietly into the sunset. The small trader feels the pinch every bit as much as the large enterprise. A job lost, a shop closed or a restaurant on the brink are all equally painful for the person at risk. The Government has stated that the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform has established "a new group to look at the issue of commercial rent reviews". Does it not realise that the situation is at crisis level? Has it fallen down the rabbit hole with Alice, living in a land where, if it can protect the banks and the developers, the rest of the economy will magically recover? We need action right now, not another report which may not be acted upon for over a year. Like every other Deputy and Senator, my e-mail inbox has been inundated by messages from businesses urging the implementation of this legislation and talking about the number of jobs that will be saved in companies across the country if rents can be renegotiated.

As spokesperson on tourism, the failure of many restaurants, gift shops and other retail outlets is highlighted to me on a daily basis. The tourism industry is hugely important to this country and if the infrastructure is not sustained, apart from the impact of the immediate job losses, it will take years to rebuild the industry. There are many complex issues underpinning the tourism industry but exorbitant rents are a large part of its ailment. For the protection of one of Ireland's most important industries a downward rent review is essential to their survival.

There are 436,000 people on the live register. There are a number of businesses which are on the edge and the continuation of unsustainably high rents will force them to cease trading, destroying the Irish economy as well as pushing more people into the ever expanding queues at the local social welfare offices. We need action now to give business every chance to survive and help bring Ireland out of the economic morass in which it resides. Everyone gains from this Bill with the exception of the landlords, many of whom are foreign pension and investment funds with no ties to Ireland. The choice for the Government and backbench Deputies is to choose with whom they stand. Do they stand with the businesses that provide employment and can help power Ireland's economic recovery or do they stand with the foreign pension funds, landlords, bankers and developers who have already done so much to destroy this country?

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