Mr. Vincent Jennings:

I am very conscious of the fact that the committee had a number of people in here previously and would have heard the same things. The Deputy is meeting people in his constituency every day as well, so he is familiar with a lot of the issues and he knows they are burning topics. There are a couple of other elements that are unfair. Someone mentioned about common sense. There is a lack of common sense in the regulatory approach to some matters, such as the exorbitant cost to retailers and the hospitality sector of street furniture and the licences for same. It is not just street furniture but there are costs related to awnings and the like. If we are looking at it overall, it is the cumulative effect of the drip, drip of money here, there and elsewhere. There are royalties for Irish Music Rights Organisation, IMRO, and Phonographic Performance Ireland, PPI. There is a binding judgment by the European Court of Justice about the playing of radios in businesses. That was never implemented here. I am not talking about canned music. I am talking about a radio inside a shop. I am talking about coming into a shop. Nobody is getting a real benefit from that. They walk into a shop, buy something and walk back out again but you have to pay a royalty for it.

The Deputy spoke about the valuation of rates. Petrol stations received the most extraordinary additional valuations. The methodology that was used in that needs to be investigated because it was grossly unfair and highly discriminatory towards a particular sector.

How we look at turnover is another issue. For many of us who sell excised products, be that alcohol, tobacco or fuel, it includes an enormous amount of excise, yet we are judged by insurance companies or otherwise on the overall turnover. In the same way as VAT is excluded, excise should be excluded because that money is pledged to the State, yet it is incorporated as part of turnover.

We have all heard about crime and the costs of that. They are real costs to us. I am really happy the programme for Government has within it a number of specific recommendations but they have to be done. We have to look at those things for data sharing and the like.

There is also the question of revisiting the living wage and what will be a fair one. Unless we actually manage some formula that excludes the public sector and the foreign direct investment sector, there will not be a like-for-like situation in Ireland.

I appreciate this opportunity and thank the Chair.