Mary Butler (Waterford, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Are the rates determined differently from local authority to local authority? I think that was another issue that has been raised with me. Rates that are not collected constitute lost revenue. We will all be conscious of our own local authorities that will try to strike a budget in the next few weeks and we will all see the amount of lost revenue involved. I note the person I was trying to advise has continued paying what she had been paying before the increase and there is huge will to keep paying one's way.

In this case, the increase was very substantial and while it was appealed and paired back a little, it was not enough and the business was no longer sustainable. Businesses often fail owing to competitiveness. Competition is the life of trade, we all know and accept that but the fact that businesses are rated for three years and cannot do anything about that is becoming a huge issue.