Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Gabhaim míle buíochas as an gcur i láthair sin freisin. One of the major challenges to retail at the moment is the billions of euro migrating to the Internet annually. The problem for the country on the back of this is that €3 out of every €4 is being spent outside the jurisdiction, so it is being lost to the State. It seems to me that one of the projects the LEOs and the local authorities should be nailing down is in regard to ensuring that the real retail space that exists in towns and villages throughout the country is quickly put up onto a virtual retail space. In other words, towns such as Athboy, Oldcastle and Ballivor would have a virtual space on the Internet and each of the retailers that function in the area would be given help, direction and support in starting to use e-commerce or, at the very least, some level of access to marketing tools on the Internet. If many of these businesses do not migrate to that sphere, they will encounter massive difficulties in the future.

We had a discussion on this not long ago. It is a King Canute-type fight against the Internet at one level but what Mr. Fitzsimons said is also important, namely, that people need human interaction as well and there will be an important space for that in the future. Mr. Fitzsimons might tell us how many town teams are in place or being developed throughout the country.

The enterprise agencies in the State have had an attitude towards retail which has been that they will give soft supports but they will not provide other types of supports. Displacement has been an issue for them in that regard. As a result of the fact that there is such a level of migration to Internet sales, is it time for the enterprise agencies to look at giving more solid and stronger supports - such as financial, investment or grant supports - to retailers, particularly in rural areas, so they can function? Obviously, those supports would be based on the viability of the businesses in question after they are provided and would not represent an effort to keep them alive in circumstances where they are not sustainable.

Will Mr. Jennings indicate whether there has been any change with regard to retail organisations, such as the Convenience Stores and Newsagents Association, negotiating with suppliers in a collective fashion which defends their members' rights or is it still the case that local retailers are forced to deal individually with very large suppliers and, therefore, have very little negotiating power?

Mr. Jennings said that the Convenience Stores and Newsagents Association has 1,500 members. What kind of employee levels are there within that and how big is the specific sector? There has been much discussion about Brexit and we had Enterprise Ireland before the committee recently. When its representatives told us it was dealing with Brexit, I asked how many people were working on it and I was told that there are two. We often hear that supports are being given to businesses that are suffering with regard to Brexit. The entire Border region is a major rural area and it is the one most under threat with regard to people doing their retail shopping in the North. Do the witnesses know of practical examples of supports the types of businesses to which I refer have actually received to date in that space?

When the witnesses talk about getting retailers to use vacant spaces, are they referring to a vacant site tax or what type of mechanism is suggested? Has any consideration been given to the idea of a progressive rates base for businesses in order that businesses in rural spaces would have a rates base which takes into consideration their levels of profitability? This might help further their sustainability into the future.