Ms Tara Buckley:

RGDATA represents the owners of about 3,500 local shops, convenience stores and supermarkets which employ close to 100,000 people in the independent retail sector. They are very good supporters of their local communities, spending about €41 million annually on sponsorship and donations. It is a tough market and many are very concerned about the impact of Brexit. While they think it is an unknown entity at present, there is an opportunity to tackle some of the increasing business costs. We believe that making us lean, mean and ready to tackle the challenges Brexit will bring is the thing to do. Much like the members of the Convenience Stores and Newsagents Association, the members of RGDATA have the same concerns. We put particular emphasis on banking and shop insurance costs. We believe there is a significant problem for our members with insurance premia which have been increasing for a typical convenience store from less than €10,000 a few years ago to up to €100,000 today. The other concern is that our members must pay the first portion of any claim which could range from €5,000 to €10,000. Some of our members have been subject to several claims from the same family, costing them up to €100,000. This is a significant and challenging problem which is causing great distress for individuals who are trying very hard to run businesses in towns and villages all over the country where the rise in economic activity has not reached them. We have made some suggestions to the working group on insurance costs. We will give the committee the list of our suggestions and obviously would like it to support some of the actions proposed.