Billy Timmins (Wicklow, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I wish to pick up on the point Deputy Dara Murphy made on property tax and house insurance. A large number of properties cannot receive insurance owing to flood risk. In my county, householders in Bray, Arklow, Baltinglass and several other towns approached me long before the concept of property tax was mentioned to say they could not get insurance owing to flood risk. We need to make provision to compensate or recognise the difficulties such people have.

I welcome the Finance Bill, which contains many progressive measures. I also welcome that since the publication of the budget the Minister has taken on board some suggestions to introduce progressive measures to help the economy back on its feet. I recently called on a friend who, like most businesspeople, has not been in the best of form in recent years. He outlined to me the various bodies he had to deal with, including the local authority, health and safety, health inspector relating to catering, health inspector for tobacco control, fire officer and IMRO. That was before he ever went to deal with traders, Revenue or his customers. I welcome that the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation is making progress in trying to deal with the difficulties with bureaucracy that businesses are encountering.

The same individual recounted to me - I went to the film "Lincoln" recently so I hope these statistics are fairly accurate - that the Gettysburg address contains 272 words and yet EU directives on eggs contain approximately 10,000 words. That tells us something. My grasp of detail is not very good but I know that Deputy O'Dea has a considerable amount of spare time on his hands and will go away and research the matter, and come back to correct me or otherwise.

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