Timmy Dooley (Clare, Fianna Fail)

I welcome the opportunity to contribute to this debate. This House is often accused of being behind in discussing important issues, but we are right on the money on this occasion in that we are dealing with a matter of hugely significant importance. Given his personal business experience, the Minister of State is well aware of the impact the current financial crisis is having on so many small businesses throughout the country. I am talking on behalf of the small enterprise sector whose members are not there just to make a profit but to create and sustain jobs. The biggest crisis bedevilling this country is the lack of employment, the number of people being let go and the number of small businesses going out of operation every day. That has a consequent impact on employment levels. At the heart of that problem is a level of bureaucratic red tape and cost for small and micro-enterprises. I am not talking about SMEs as the European Commission would define them, but those that employ fewer than ten people. They are absolutely on their knees, as the Minister of State is aware. He knows the kind of difficulties they are encountering and the impact they are having on owners and their staff.

Much noise is regularly made through the media and in this House if some multinational decides to turn its back on this State and leave, or even if a medium-sized employer lets 40, 50 or 60 people go. However, literally thousands of people are losing their jobs on a daily basis in small and micro-enterprises, but those events never make it into the national media. Those lost jobs are in shops, pubs, furniture stores and so many other sectors of the domestic economy. We must do something to protect those jobs and ensure there is a viable domestic economy. It is not just about giving some kind of holiday from paying such rates; nor is it about forcing Fine Gael and the Labour Party, whose members are in control of many councils, to provide a sizeable rate reduction. It must be much more fundamental than that.

It does not seem fair that a furniture shop, which requires a large amount of space due to the bulky goods it sells, should pay rates on the same square-footage basis as a chip shop, a fast-food joint or some kind of mobile telephony store that is delivering a high-value return on a relatively small floor space. There must be some correlation between the economic activity of a business and the rates it pays. Until such time as we deal with that issue, we will never find a solution to this problem.

The Minister of State has indicated that there is a different capacity to establish rates and that it would be rolled out if the staff were there. We hear the usual type of excuses but they are not good enough. There is no point in saying "You didn't address it when you were in power". I know the Minister of State will not say that, but others have sought to do so on his behalf. It is a new situation now. We are haemorrhaging jobs on a daily basis and will continue to do so unless we can find an appropriate methodology for the collection of rates.

I now wish to discuss how rates are spent. A more aggressive approach is needed to the value-for-money delivery of services by local authorities. We must have a fundamental review of what local authorities do. The State does so in terms of the services it delivers, so it is also incumbent on local authorities to do it. If necessary, they should strip back to the core services that are required. One cannot expect small businesses to continue to pay for a service delivery that has many components that are nice to have in better times.

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