Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry South, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Technical Group for giving me some of its speaking time. Nobody can accuse the Minister or his predecessors of rushing this legislation as it has been approximately 13 years in the making. The Bill is 1,300 pages long and costs €109. Nobody could say it was rushed or put together in a hurry.

I have received representations from accountants who have concerns about this Bill. All qualified accountants in Ireland are disappointed that the Bill does not include a clause giving protection to the term "accountant", as was promised by successive Governments. In Ireland, the titles "doctor", "dentist", "solicitor", etc., are protected so that only a person qualified and registered with a supervisory body can trade as such, but this is not the case for accountants. Anyone can set up an office and refer to himself or herself as an accountant. This is misleading to the public and anti-competitive, as all qualified accountants are required to be licensed and insured, whereas an unqualified accountant is not regulated but competes with qualified accountants for clients.

The various accountancy institutes have campaigned for this for some time and they have sent a letter outlining their concerns to all the qualified accountants who sit in Dáil Éireann. I raise this matter on behalf of up to 40 qualified accountants in County Kerry who create much needed jobs and provide a respectable service. We are all very glad of good and proper accountants and accounting advice when we need it. County Kerry is blessed that it has very eminent and qualified accountants looking after its affairs.

I would like to hear what the Minister of State and the Government have to say about that. The person who brought it to my attention is perfectly correct.

Since I was 17 or 18, I have been a small employer. I have run various types of businesses and experienced all of the associated red tape. It must be acknowledged that small companies and businesses are the backbone of the economy. Anything that can be done to make the running of a small company or business easier should be done by the Government.

Some days ago I heard a multinational retailer, which I will not name, boasting about how it would create 200 or 300 new jobs here. I have no doubt that it will, but in doing so it will probably cost small businesses 300, 400 or 500 jobs. There is nothing said about that. This relates to the challenges small businesses face daily in competing with multinationals. We all want competition and people to have a variety of goods.

We are always told that, for ethical reasons, we must declare everything. I may be deemed to have a vested interest when I speak about multinational shops because I am a small trader and have a small shop and run a small country post office. Of course, I defend my business, but I also defend every other person with a small shop. These small businesses are the backbone of the country and give much needed employment. There is nothing fancy or grand about it in that the shops about which I speak do not employ 200 or 300 people; they employ two or three. However, these employers are very important.

In recent years small businesspeople have been crippled with bureaucracy and red tape. People are blowing about how this Bill will be great. Members on the other side of the House are all clapping each other on the back. Does the Minister of State not see what is happening every day among small businesses? I will give him examples. HSE officials travel around in a motor car and employ under-age youngsters to try to entrap shopkeepers by getting them to sell cigarettes to them. Shopkeepers try to act within the law and we all want to see the law upheld - we do not want to see cigarettes sold to those who are under age - but it is wrong that there are Government agencies trying to entrap and criminalise people if an error is made. I can instance a case in which a shop made stools available for elderly people waiting for their shopping or assistance. A HSE official insisted that the stools had to be taken out of the shop. Can any Government tell me it is helping small businesses when it carries on like that?

Daily there are rafts of new Bills. The cost of compliance with legislation is enormous. In recent months it was dreamed up that it was a great idea that filling station owners should account daily, weekly and monthly for the amount of stock in their fuel tanks. This was deemed to be a way of combating the illegal sale of fuel, including laundered fuel. However, it placed a further burden on already struggling small businesses. One might believe it is very easy to keep a record of stocks in the manner prescribed, but it takes time and there is an expense. Somebody has to take on the job every day. It is anti-competitive and represents another burden on businesses.

The Government should do something imaginative. We must all send in audited returns. The cost of submitting audited returns every 12 months is significant for small businesses. What if the Government came up with an imaginative proposal such as requiring the submission, by small businesses with a turnover below a specified threshold, of an audited return only every two or three years? Would this not be positive? It could save a small business or company €4,000 or €5,000 per year. These are the imaginative steps the Government should be taking.

Receivership should be the very last option for small businesses. The best person to keep a business going is the business owner. There was recently a high profile receivership action in County Kerry in which a highly capable businessperson, whom I will not name, had their business taken from them. That was wrong. In general, every assistance should be given to a person to keep his or her door open and to allow him or her to try to save his or her business. Just as a farmer adores his or her land, a businessman who has been running and trading successfully, or struggling for many years, dearly wants to keep his door open, stay in charge of his own destiny and try to continue to create employment. Receivership should be the last option in all cases.

The Government made commitments and broke promises regarding upward-only rent reviews. I asked in the House on several occasions why the Government would not make public its correspondence on upward-only rent reviews and the reneging on the promises it had made before the general election. I firmly believe the Government dropped the ball. Of course, high rents must be tackled. One need only go out onto the street to meet people who are paying rents that are too expensive. This issue should be tackled.

There is a raft of new charges on businesses, including increased water charges and refuse charges. The bills that come in every day are a burden; it is like an avalanche. They really find it hard and it does not look as if there is any light at the end of the tunnel for them.

It is very important to small businesses and companies that broadband be provided in all parts of the countryside. Now more than ever before, people are creating offices in their homes, if possible, in an effort to curtail costs. Broadband is essential in the running of any business.

The behaviour of the banks leaves an awful lot to be desired. Business owners who want to advance or improve would see a great difference if they were given a small amount of money. Despite the fact that they might have a great track record for many years, they are not receiving loans. Just because bank mangers and bankers lent recklessly to those who would never be in a position to pay back what they owed, they are refusing to give loans to those whom I would call respectable businesspeople.

The people about whom I am speaking are not fly-by-nights like those who during the boom were flying around the country in helicopters thinking they were gods but the backbone of Ireland in terms of the small businesses they run, some of which were started by their parents, grandparents and so on. They are also the unfortunate victims of bad banking practises. The banks need to start lending again to small companies if they are to remain viable and the economy is to recover. This is one of the most important issues on which the Government should be concentrating. I urge it to stop looking to the multinationals to invest here and create jobs and focus instead on protecting the people here who are creating employment.

I would like to speak about the level of unemployment in County Kerry which has been badly let down not alone by this Government but also by successive Governments, IDA Ireland and all of the other agencies charged with bringing investment and employment to all counties. The agencies are not concentrating on locating jobs in County Kerry. Enough is not being done in this regard. I have always been supportive of the local development companies and have had many dealings during the years with the partnership companies. Lest anybody accuse me, as happened recently in a media report, of not declaring what might perceived to be a vested interest in this regard, I am currently involved in a small business which is awaiting an adjudication on an application for funding. I support the work of the local development companies which, in the administration of European funds, always take a bottom up approach in nurturing and assisting businesses. They assist people who are creating jobs for themselves and, perhaps, one or two others, be it in the tourism or manufacturing sector. Many owe the success of their small businesses to the critical investment they received from Leader companies at a time when they desperately needed it. Great significance should be placed on back to work initiatives and so on. Any initiative which helps even one person to return to employment, even if it is only for a couple of days a week in the first instance, is welcome. Irish people want to work. They need a reason to get up in the morning and make a living for themselves. The Government needs to support them in that regard.

When it comes to the removal of red tape, enough is not being done by the Government. If I thought this legislation would help small businesses and keep people in employment, I would be supportive of it. However, enough is not being done in this regard by the Government. The Minister of State, Deputy Michael Ring, will know from his constituency work that many people are in distress. Owing to the refusal of banks to assist them and the level of red tape involved in terms of high insurance costs and so on, many have seen their life's work crumble before them. The cost of public liability insurance is out of control. Many are finding it difficult to get such insurance and those who have managed to get it are experiencing difficulties in meeting the cost of premiums which are ever increasing, not because they have made a claim but to cover the cost of claims made by others, which is unfair. I am approached on a daily and weekly basis by people who are finding it hard to keep going. These are the reasons for many of the company closures during the past five years, in particular. The number of vacant premises in towns and villages saddens me. Many of them are going to rack and ruin. Many pubs have also gone out of business. Successive Governments did everything they could to ensure the closure of pubs and small shops, leaving villages decimated. Those that remain open are under attack.

The Minister for Justice and Equality, Deputy Alan Shatter, thought it was a good idea to close rural Garda stations. People, particularly those living in rural Ireland, will remember this. The Minister also closed Garda stations in urban Ireland, including one in which 36 gardaí were located. As I have stated previously in the House, the cost of closing a Garda station is greater than keeping it open. The Minister has misled the House on numerous occasions. On one occasion he told us that the purpose in closing Garda stations was to have more gardaí on the street, while on another, he told us gardaí were being taken from Garda stations and placed in community centres and so on. Where was the common sense in this approach?

When I look at those sitting on the front benches on the Government side - I do not include the Minister of State, Deputy Michael Ring, in this, as he is a good Minister - I see people who have never created even one job. A person who cannot create a job for himself or herself cannot create jobs for his or her friends and neighbours. Many Ministers would not have a clue how to create employment, which, sadly, is evident from some of the decisions they have made since taking up office.

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