Mary White (Carlow-Kilkenny, Green Party)

I raise the need to review the levying of commercial rates on local community groups which have charitable status, such as Teach Mhuire in Gowran, County Kilkenny. It is a terrific community initiative supplying meals on wheels, laundry services and other supports for the elderly and disadvantaged. There has been great progress in recent years in State support to encourage community and voluntary groups, and funding for these groups has increased significantly. The new Charities Act will greatly enable charities such as Teach Mhuire to do their work.

Something must be done about the levying of rates on institutions such as Teach Mhuire, particularly voluntary groups which do such tremendous work in their community. A good example is the Gowran parish enterprise centre in my constituency of Carlow-Kilkenny. The enterprise, otherwise known as Teach Mhuire, provides vital services for older and vulnerable people in the local community, those living in rural isolation in that part of south Kilkenny and those without much family support.

The centre provides meals on wheels, a terrific laundry service, therapy, computer services and yoga. For those who are unable to cook for themselves, a car is provided to bring those people to the centre so they can have one good hot meal every day. The area serviced by this organisation is wide in terms of geographical boundaries in Kilkenny. It serves Gowran, Dungarvan, Goresbridge, Paulstown, Clara and Bennettsbridge, which amounts to a very wide and diverse geographical spread.

The centre applied for and obtained charitable status from the Revenue Commissioners, which ensures that the centre gets a tax exemption from deposit interest retention tax, capital acquisitions tax, companies capital duty and stamp duty. It also provides, through the Taxes Consolidation Act, tax relief for donations made to the centre. All of this is most welcome.

However, at local authority level the centre is now faced with a very large levy of commercial rates on their premises payable to Kilkenny County Council. In 2009, €1,726 is due to the council, which is appalling. This is a wonderful charitable enterprise doing tremendous work in the local community and it cannot afford to pay these rates. Although this may not seem like a large sum to the county council in terms of the €10.5 million in rates that it collected in 2007, it is a massive financial burden for a small community service centre which is not operating for profit and which has all the high costs necessary for companies, such as insurance, rent and employees' wages, in order to run these wide-ranging and diverse services for the local community.

The levying of rates on such organisations is financial madness. If the letter of the law must be applied, I hope that a token rate on such enterprises might be undertaken. If the State were to undertake these services, it would cost millions of euro to replicate the services run at Teach Mhuire.

I ask the Minister of State to ensure that this excellent organisation should not be penalised in such a high-handed manner. I hope those involved will be allowed to continue to roll out the service and that the rates will be removed, particularly as the organisation involved is charitable in nature. Like many affected by the recession, the employees of this organisation have taken a major pay cut. This is a vital community initiative and I hope that the rates relating to it might be removed as a gesture of goodwill and in view of the fact that it is a charitable organisation.

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