Ms Tara Buckley:

I will reply to a couple of questions and then hand over to Mr. Colin Fee. In respect of employers' PRSI, the cost to Mr. Eamonn Gavin, who has 28 staff, is €22,000. Other members who have several hundred staff, have reported their costs to us. In the independent retail trade, many of our members employ part-time people. These are very important jobs in local communities for mothers who want to work in the morning and be able to collect their children from school. Many of these are earning less than €356 per week because they are working shorter hours. They are hugely important jobs to those families in those communities. That employers' PRSI allowed retailers to give those people jobs. As Mr. Eamonn Gavin said, he would employ more of those type of people if he could afford to because he needs more assistance in his store but he unable to do so due to costs. If that is the average among our members we believe there could be 90,000 jobs in the independent retail sector. Even if the number is 80,000 and if it costs €22,000 for every 20 jobs, that is a lot of money collected through PRSI. We think it is better if it paid to people who will spend it in their local community and keep other businesses and jobs going. Our argument would be that it is a short-sighted measure which, if reversed, would make a critical impact on local jobs. Quite often we appear before the committee and discuss policies. This is a simple measure that could be put in place and which we genuinely believe would create jobs in towns and villages, the type of jobs that are needed.

On the issue of out-of-town centres, we are big champions of the retail planning guidelines and sustainable retail planning on which we have done much work in the past. Following a review of our retail planning guidelines I am delighted to say that the planners in the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government are good, think ahead and are strategic. We are appreciative of the work they have done on those guidelines. Where the guidelines are upheld - I am aware of this from other groups who have appeared before the committee - and retailers are directed into the retail zone or the town centre, those towns are doing very well. If we think about the examples that have been relayed here about towns that are doing well, they are the towns with the retailers, and importantly, the food retailers in the town centre. The towns that have allowed the doughnut development and the food retailers to go out to greenfield sites are the towns that are suffering. The daily footfall that the food retailer creates has gone out of the town.

The retailers who want to build huge out-of-town stores do not want competition. They want to be out there on their own where one can go to their free car park and do all one's shopping there without giving business to anybody else. We think we are the most competitive. We are happy to be in the town centre where one can come in and compete with us. We think that is a much fairer system and it is much better for the town and the community because everyone is shopping around. There is competition, variety, quality and choice. Our only concern is that every now and then a local authority or somebody tries to get around the retail planning guidelines or apply for a change to their development plan. We would say to member of the committee, as policymakers, that they should resist that.

An application was made earlier this year for a very large discount warehouse beside Ikea in Ballymun. That should have been resisted as it will be devastating for towns and villages not only in that area but in surrounding counties. There is some move towards changing local neighbourhood centres to allow in much bigger stores. That is not what a local neighbour centre is about. A local neighbourhood centre is a local small convenient store with a medical centre, a beautician, or whatever but not a very large supermarket. One should not change those laws to allow for large supermarkets to go in. They should be local neighbourhood centres. While many positive developments are taking place, I ask policymakers to keep an eye on the position because there are people who will always try to wriggle and change the guidelines and forget about the good policies in place.

I invite Mr. Colin Fee to speak about the difficulties with the banks, obtaining loans and parking levies, on which Senator Feargal Quinn asked for more information.