Mr. Reg McCabe:

I wish to make a final point on the structure of the commercial rates system.

It is just picking up on Deputy Murphy's comment about Intel. The system is heavily biased against the larger companies. That is to do with the way the valuation system operates, in other words, the way in which values are attributed to particular locations or businesses. There is a heavy bias against the bigger players. For example, the biggest rates payer that I have identified within our organisation is paying €1.8 million. The difficulty is that company is losing money, but it is still required to pay the rates. I am not saying that €1.8 million is typical. The company is exceptional, but it is a fact that the proprietor is writing a cheque for €1.8 million to a particular local authority every year, irrespective of the level of service he is drawing down.

On the point generally, in Dublin city, half of the €350 million in rates income comes from less than 3% of companies in Dublin. There are nearly 25,000 ratepayers in Dublin, 600 of whom pay €170 million between them - in other words, 3% of the companies are paying 50% of the rates. I say this merely to illustrate how inequitable it is. There are few defenders around here of big companies, but the rates system is highly inequitable in the impact as between the small, medium and large. While we are on the topic of the need for reform of the valuation system, that is a point worth making.