Paul Connaughton (Galway East, Fine Gael)

I am glad to have an opportunity to speak on this issue. This matter is raised on a yearly if not a weekly basis, when considering the issues faced by small businesses throughout the country. No matter what has happened in the past, it is time to look to the future and see how we will fix this problem and give small businesses the best opportunity to do what they do best, which is to provide employment in local towns.

There is unbelievable pressure on businesses at present through increases in costs such as electricity and water. However, commercial rates continue to pop up as the reason they struggle. A major issue is with regard to the Valuation Office. It came before the Committee of Public Accounts several weeks ago and it is unacceptable to have a situation whereby it could take ten years to complete the revaluation process in some parts of the country, given that business changes on a weekly basis. Many business people are holding on to the idea that the revaluation will be of some assistance to them and might lower their rates. Unfortunately this may not be the case. We must encourage a new way of doing this because waiting for the Valuation Office to reach all parts of the country is not acceptable. It does not have the staff or funding to do it.

We have tied the rates businesses pay to local authorities and we do not want to starve local authorities of funding. Roads are badly underfunded at present, as we can see in all parts of the country, and the Leas-Cheann Comhairle and I are very aware of this through some of the issues we have in our area. People have been waiting for many years for group water schemes to be upgraded. They are ready to go, but owing to a reduction in funding to local authorities, they may not see the light of day for a while yet.

We must come up at a system that is fair and based on the size of the business involved. The one-size-fits-all solution is not working at present. Larger businesses pay the same as smaller businesses and this is completely unfair because on an annual basis local authorities are lobbied to reduce the commercial rate, but all this does is reward larger businesses because they get more out of it. If we are to continue funding local authorities from commercial rates we must do so on a fair basis. While small businesses must fund local authorities, this cannot be at the expense of their existence. At a time when we are trying to create jobs, if every small businesses had the ability to take on one or two more people, we would start to see a drop in unemployment figures.

I welcome what has happened so far in the reform of local government but much more needs to be done. If we want to see small businesses continue to operate in local towns where they provide employment, we must come up with a more fair and balanced system.

See this speech in context