Mary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)

I accept the importance of restaurants as part of our tourism industry. This is why Fáilte Ireland has established a food and hospitality office to specifically deal with issues that are relevant to them. Organisations such as Good Food Ireland and the Restaurants Association of Ireland serve their members very well. A number of issues have been raised by them with me, on which we are working. I have already referred to the JLCs and the cost of labour, which is one of the issues, but there is also the cost of rates. Everybody in the industry is seeking that the revaluations be progressed quickly to ensure they are fairer, which was also referred to in the plan. However, where the revaluations took place for south Dublin and Fingal, the hotel valuations came down but those for restaurants actually increased. A fair and speedy system of revaluation is something we have set out in the plan. These are issues that can be addressed to support the industry over and above what I have said already.

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