Ciarán Lynch (Cork South Central, Labour)

Will the Minister sit down?

Yesterday evening, in his unique style as just seen, the Minister dismissed the Bill, me, the Labour and Fine Gael parties. He also dismissed those in the Visitors Gallery as a rent-a-crowd brought to the House by the Labour Party. They were 50 members of the retail industry employing 15,000 people. They were probably more interested in what the Minister had to say than what I had to say. It would have done the Minister the world of good if he returned them the courtesy. The Minister of State, Deputy Kelleher, delivered a short script that made no mention of the Bill.

I have many rebuttals I can present to the Minister's legal arguments and which Deputy Gilmore has challenged him to take to Committee Stage. The Minister's legal opinion is ultimately about defending the NAMA portfolios and protecting the rental property bubble. If this Bill were to proceed, it would show the whole valuation process the Government has put together is a house of cards, based on notional values that do not stand up in the market place. It is a market place in which retailers are now finding employment, materials and energy costs are secondary to meeting the rent for institutional landlords.

Up to 20,000 retail stores employ just under 300,000 people with 30,000 losing their jobs last year in the sector. The upward rents are a significant national matter. This Bill recognises the emergency the country faces in this regard. It is a wake-up call to the Minister and the Government that there are real problems happening in the real economy affecting real people every day. The Minister, along with his party colleagues and the Green Party, which is now indistinguishable from Fianna Fáil, must allow this Bill to proceed to Committee Stage where it can be tested and give some measure of hope to businesses struggling every week. It would send out the signal that there is light at the end of the tunnel, that the country believes in recovery and that the unsustainable, unrealistic, uncompetitive position in which retailers find themselves can be dealt with.

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