Ms Anne Marie Caulfield:

I thank the Chairman for giving me the opportunity to speak. I attend in two capacities. I am president of the south-east region of IBEC; therefore, I represent four or five counties. I am also a business person and retailer. We have eight separate sites in the south-east regions which stretches as far as Bandon, County Cork and to Malahide, County Dublin. As we see a very broad picture in terms of rates, I will speak about that issue first.

There is a certain level of frustration experienced by my business and also by others which are members of IBEC about the level of rates, the optics on how rates are spent and where the money goes. All of us involved in business pay water charges and do not have a problem with doing so, but such charges will increase. There are also waste management charges and so on. It is difficult to see where rates are being spent, how they are being spent and what benefits they give to individual businesses.

Mr. McCabe touched on a couple of matters. I will commence with the standardisation of rates. We operate in locations that are included in county and city areas. When rates are standardised, additional costs will be generated for our business and others around us. That is a source of very serious concern for us because businesses are already under pressure, particularly retail businesses, while consumer sentiment is low. There was a flicker of recovery, but it is still very fragile and many retailers are under serious pressure.

With regard to the refund of rates being reduced from 100% to 50%, we have experienced the adjustment in owning some properties. The reduction will have a serious impact on business.

The last matter about which I wish to talk is the revaluation process. We have gone through it in Waterford where we have experienced an increase in rates. Many businesses in Waterford city have experienced a negative impact. Some experienced a significant increase of between 10% and 40%, but it depended on the type of business involved. I am aware of one business that experienced a rates increase in excess of 40%. In order for it to pay the increase, it would have had to increase its turnover by in excess of 5%.