Mr. Ian Talbot:

There are a number of other issues. Senator Healy Eames spoke about the sense of place in a town centre. Much of our presentation was focused on how we return a sense of community and good experience to a town centre to help people return there. Deputy Lyons is familiar with Charlestown shopping centre and Finglas. Finglas was a marvellous community town when I was growing up but the shopping centre has had an impact. This comes back to how local authorities can help to drive what happens in an area. To return to our presentation, we stated there is a real onus on local authorities, the new structures, the local community development committees and strategic policy committees to focus on the redevelopment of town centres.

With regard to taxation, if all VAT was reduced to 9% everyone would want a piece of it.

It is about how we make sure we are making the right changes that keep us alive as a country and get our sustainability sorted out.