Feargal Quinn (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I apologise for having to leave for a few minutes as something urgent arose.

I know the team very well and about the work they do. One of my hang-ups is the number of organisations calling on the Government or the council to do something. What I have learned about Retail Excellence Ireland is that it does it itself. That does not stop it from calling on anybody else to give a hand also. I congratulate it on this and it should keep up its enthusiasm. I do not know what the solution is to the problem of car parking. The main problem is that shopkeepers and their employees are the major offenders, if one does not have a charge. One probably has to charge for car parking. I think having a 15 minute charge is better than a two hour charge because it means that people can drop in and buy a newspaper, but it also means that if they are there for two hours, they can add another 15 minutes. I know this is happening in some towns in Ireland, but I learned about it in France and thought it was a good idea.

I urge the members of Retail Excellence Ireland to keep up their work, enthusiasm and, more than anything else, working together rather than asking somebody else to do it.