Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Sinn Fein)

I have done a little research on the Government's expenditure and my understanding is that, through the OPW, it pays approximately €98 million in rent a year. Approximately €55 million of the rent paid by the Government is paid on an upward-only basis. It is estimated that the current decrease in rent in the private sector is approximately 30% in the past three years. If the Government only benefited from half of the decrease it would save €8 million a year. I refer to the fair decrease of the upward-only rent contracts in which the Government is engaged. It is a large amount of money when cuts are expected to be made to the social welfare bill shortly. Given the state of the public finances, the economy, small businesses and the quarter of a million jobs that are dependent on them, it is incumbent on the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation to drive the reform of upward-only rents.

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