Kate O'Connell (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I support the comments made by Deputy Cassells on rates. I am aware from my time on Dublin City Council that the over-reliance on commercial rates to fund the city's business has always been an issue. There has been a lack of understanding of the pressures on small fledgling businesses. Many of the vacant units in our large urban centres have been taken over by large multinationals rather than small indigenous artisan businesses because the rates bill in the first few years is an unwelcome bill which people cannot afford. The emergence of many rates-exempt charity shops in smaller towns in rural Ireland shows that the cost of rates is a fundamental part of starting up a new business. While I was on Dublin City Council, many were of the view that businesses would suck it up and get over it and that everyone in small business had plenty of money to pay bills. We must be very conscious that if we continue on this trajectory, businesses such as Waltons will move online, leaving vacant units. It is a bit late to have waited ten years to act. One can see the evidence of it in the large urban centres. I was recently in Tullamore, in which there has been an emergence of charity shops. It is too late to act when the horse has bolted.