Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)

I might as well use all my time. The issue of rates for small businesses and parking charges has recently been discussed by some of the Government and other Opposition Deputies. It is a larger issue and although it does not solely concern tourism, it impacts significantly on that industry. Dún Laoghaire has great potential as a small port-side town but its small businesses have been massacred by the imposition of parking charges and excessive rates. We have lost approximately 70 small business in recent years. All of the local businesses and the local population have asked repeatedly whether the parking charge of €2 per hour can be reduced. There is free parking in Dundrum Shopping Centre. This sucks trade out of the town and turns it into a ghost town. I strongly appeal to the county management to reduce parking charges to €1. Can we come up with a progressive rates scheme that would give a break to small and medium-sized business? Banks and big chain stores such as Tesco could afford to pay more. This would offer a break to small businesses and traders, precisely those elements which give character to heritage towns and make people want to visit places such as Dún Laoghaire.

I ask the Minister to examine the Stena Line issue and not permit the company to act towards its workers in the manner Irish Ferries did, thereby running down this historic port. He should insist that the harbour company and Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council listen to the people of the area and that they take a sensible approach and focus on developing the heritage, keeping the jobs and making the most of the potential of the area rather than on what seem to be politically driven plans or a hangover from the property bubble. He should listen to the residents and small businesses which have the ideas and the imagination about how we might develop a place like Dún Laoghaire. He could then replicate that approach throughout the country and develop the jobs and tourism potential we know the country has.

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