Michael Fitzmaurice (Roscommon-Galway, Independent) | Oireachtas source

The Taoiseach said a few words, including "survey". What will a survey do for a small business of four or five people with one or two at the head who are trying to do everything and make sure everything is right? The other word he used was "software". We are back to the same thing. That is grand for a business with a HR department. It will have someone dedicated to that. The Taoiseach mentioned the Minister for trade and enterprise, Deputy Coveney. Yes, certain help is available but at the end of the day the people I am talking about have small businesses with one, two, three, four or five employees who are trying to do everything themselves to survive. Revenue cannot keep putting the likes of this in place. These are the small people who do the groundworks on building sites for the big guys or might do a one-off water main for a county council or for a group water scheme.

These are the small people who do not have a big enough turnover for the procurement set-up that they have to go by now in most aspects of Ireland or they are kicked out. They will not even get on the list of suppliers. What we must remember is these are the people that get up early in the morning and do the bread and butter work to keep Ireland ticking over. What the Finance Act is doing is putting more pressure on these people to the extent that some of them will just say it is not worth it. There are only so many hours in a day and there is only so much they can do and why would they even bother if they are being pushed out of business.

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