Tom Fleming (Kerry South, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the recent Government awareness campaign for small business supports, although it is somewhat belated. Following the budget announcement last October, the Minister for Finance, Deputy Noonan, acknowledged that small businesses are the lifeblood of the economy. We must be mindful that 98% of Irish firms are small to medium enterprises, SMEs, and 69% of private sector employees work for an SME. Growth in employment will therefore depend on growth in smaller businesses. Job creation figures from last year indicate that small and medium-sized businesses created almost four times more jobs than the foreign direct investment sector, for example.

Dublin and some of the larger cities and urban areas are experiencing good growth but there is a two-speed recovery. Many of our rural towns and villages are being left far behind and the effects of any recovery are still to be felt. The inner parts of towns are becoming denuded of people because of the growth of large multiples on the outskirts of the towns which attract a large volume of business. Local government may see parking charges as a cash cow in such cases, so that issue must be addressed in the immediate future. The review of valuations has so far been confined to Dublin, Waterford and Limerick, with 48,000 businesses being checked in that process. All these valuations were carried out in a boom, for example, and businesses may have declined dramatically. There is a need to reduce valuations in such cases.

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