Ann Phelan (Carlow-Kilkenny, Labour)

There is not a small town or business anywhere in Ireland for which the whole issue of commercial rates is not the main topic at present. The business world is one of the most productive elements in our society and should not be made responsible for the upkeep and maintenance of what is left of local government. I will not spend much time giving a history lesson. I know Deputy Boyd Barrett gallantly refused to have a go at Fianna Fáil about this, although I will not follow suit. It was a Fianna Fáil Government in 1977 which landed business and enterprise in the unjust position it is in today - that is a reality we should not forget. Fianna Fáil ruined the most essential public service needed by every man, woman and child in the country. We must not allow short-term political expediency to be used here ever again.

My good friends in the party opposite were also responsible for the most recent "Alice in Wonderland" solution of part-funding local services from development levies during the housing boom. In the same way that Fianna Fáil mortgaged the whole country to foreign bankers, it also mortgaged local government. We know that ended in tears and we are all paying the price for it.

Local government was primarily set up to assist in the fair and equitable distribution of funds to fund local community needs. It was the business community that created the noble concept of local government to address its need for public roads, footpaths and lights and to provide homestead comforts. It is, therefore, ironic that the same business fraternity which set up a funded local services system in the first place is now hard done by.

We owe it to the public to underpin the preservation of essential public services by spreading the bill to those who can afford it. We have to do everything possible in our national Parliament to rescue this precious resource which has so painfully been built up over the centuries. In this Dáil, we have a clear duty to respond with courage and leadership to ensure that local government can respond when it is needed - during a natural emergency, a fire, water supply interruptions or simply respond to everyday needs that local councils provide 365 days of the year. We all remember the situation last year.

The public have to be wary of those who use the local council system as a stepping stone to becoming TDs and then, when they get into this Chamber, use it to make populist statements to chambers of commerce about a blanket reduction in commercial rates. This short-term fantasy-land politics is an insult to people's intelligence, especially to those paying the rates, and leads to a very weak local government system. Now is the time for responsible collective thinking on how we should spread the burden of paying for essential public services by a direct, fair and sustainable system of taxation. Now is the time when we can genuinely assist the business community, rather than allow it to be used as political fodder, as it is being used in this House tonight.

In all of the successful alternatives operated in other countries, there is relief or abatement to those who merit such consideration. We should be able to recognise fairness. Surely it is possible for the Valuation Office in a small country like ours to devise a fair, up-to-date valuation of commercial and industrial properties as laid down by statute. We have to ensure the Valuation Office continues to be independent of sectoral influence and, in turn, does not act for the local authority. This Private Members' motion has to be challenged because it is a cynical sham by those who continue to be afflicted by selective political amnesia.

See this speech in context