Michael Moynihan (Cork North West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the opportunity to speak on this important motion. I thank Deputy Calleary for tabling it. There is no doubt that small businesses that employ two, three, four or five people are hurting in a bad way. I refer particularly to retail businesses. This is a huge issue in smaller towns throughout the country. We are familiar with the fanfare that accompanies big job announcements. The employment they bring is very welcome. When the Government parties were on this side of the House, they used to argue that if every small business created one job, it would almost resolve the employment problem. I challenge them to take up what they said on this side of the House now that they are on the other side of the House.

For the last ten years, Departments, Governments and people have said there needs to be a reduction in the amount of red tape and bureaucracy encountered by those who have the gumption and the courage to take the ball and run. When individuals and groups that have established small businesses and taken on everything involved in them come to us for help and advice, they constantly complain about the bureaucracy they encounter in their dealings with Departments and State agencies that say certain things cannot happen for certain reasons. In the last Dáil, the current Minister of State, Deputy Sherlock, and I sat on a committee that set ambitious targets for reductions in bureaucracy, met officials from the Department of the Taoiseach and other Departments and did some work in this regard. What work has been done over the last 18 months to reduce bureaucracy? The Minister of State and I are well aware that the level of bureaucracy is causing huge difficulties and huge headaches.

We have to examine the possibility of determining commercial rates by reference to turnover rather than square footage. People who have confined their businesses to smaller sections of their outlets over the last three or four years have to pay rates on the basis of the larger premises. Some of the businesses in smaller towns that are having to close have been in operation for 70 or 80 years. I am aware of businesses in towns in my constituency that have closed for a raft of reasons, including difficulties in securing the proper terms from the bank and difficulties in meeting the targets that have been set down in relation to bureaucracy, etc. The Opposition in the last Dáil made huge play of the issue of upward-only rent reviews. It is time for the parties in question to come clean about the barrage of advice that was available to them. For all our sakes, they should admit they led the people up the garden path.

I wish to refer to an important issue that is constantly being mentioned by other Deputies. Self-employed people and small business owners who go out of business have nothing to rely on when they go to social welfare offices because of their class S contributions, whereas people who are made redundant can use their stamps to sign on for a certain period of time. A report that landed on the desk of the Minister for Social Protection this time last year set out how directors of companies, sole traders and others with class S contributions can have those contributions recorded in a way that would allow them to benefit from them if they became redundant or if their business ceased. I understand the United Kingdom has taken up an initiative to allow the self-employed to benefit from their contributions. My understanding is that in November or December of last year, the Minister, Deputy Burton, received advice from the Attorney General and the legal apparatus of the State, but we have heard nothing since. I have asked on a number of occasions for the advice on these issues that was brought to the Government to be made known. Sole traders and self-employed people who cease trading or go out of business need to be helped because the State is giving them nothing to rely on at present.

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