Garret Ahearn (Fine Gael)
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I apologise for the fact that I have only arrived to the meeting. I was listening online earlier and then I was speaking in the Seanad, so I heard most of the contributions at the start of the meeting. I thank the witnesses for their contributions and for the representations they make for small businesses, particularly in rural areas. As Mr. McGrane is aware, I am from County Tipperary. I have two questions, one on the immediate challenges, which Mr. Jennings will be happy with, and one on the longer-term challenges, which relates to Ms. Buckley's contribution. My colleague, Senator Ward, could not be here today but as Ms Twomey knows, he is on about theses issues in Deansgrange quite a lot. He wanted to pass on his apologies to the witnesses.

In his contribution, Mr. Jennings spoke about how bills have gone from €6,500 to €22,000. Obviously, as part of that a scheme has been brought forward which will provide qualifying businesses with up to 40% of the increase in electricity or gas bills. That will bring that €22,000 down to around €15,500, which is still astronomical - there are no two ways about it. What should we be supporting? What is the figure we should be giving businesses to make it viable for them to survive over the winter months, and what costs will that involve for the State, so that businesses can be supported and a large proportion of them that are under huge pressure do not fail?

My second question is for Ms Buckley. She spoke, in her contribution, about the redevelopment of towns and the challenges businesses have when councils come up with wild ideas that they might see as enhancing the town centres, but which can actually impact greatly on businesses. In my own experience, there are redevelopment plans for three of the eight towns in Tipperary. We just got funding last week for Cahir, Carrick-on-Suir and Roscrea to totally redevelop the whole town centres. There will be issues with parking and things like that. They are all issues that we can work through with the council. Ms Buckley spoke about the impact that such redevelopments have on businesses and trade. Has research been done on the actual financial implications for small businesses in rural towns across the country that can I can use going forward when we are talking about redeveloping Cahir and Carrick-on-Suir? What lessons have we learned from other towns, from a business perspective? The real challenge is to support businesses when we are trying to redevelop towns. Is there research on the loss of incomes businesses have suffered not just during the redevelopment, but following the redevelopment of town centres?