Conor Lenihan (Dublin South West, Fianna Fail)

My colleague, the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform set up a new working group to look at the issue of commercial rent reviews last week and my Department is represented on this new group. The group will be asked to focus particularly on the arbitration process and the adequacy of the information available to all parties in the context of commercial rent reviews. The Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform, Deputy Dermot Ahern, has already banned upward-only rent reviews in new leases, which took effect this month. The new group will bring all the relevant parties together to see how we can deal further with other aspects of concern in existing leases.

With regard to more general measures to support jobs and growth in the economy, Budget 2010 included a number of pro-business, pro-jobs and pro-enterprise measures, including a car scrappage scheme, the extension of the tax exemption for start-up companies, an improved research and development tax credit to 25%, tax treatment of certain dividends, withholding tax on royalty income-----

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