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

I thank my colleagues, Deputies Casey and Cassells. While we welcome some of the initiatives in the Bill, the Local Government (Rates) Bill gives us an opportunity in the House to reflect on rates, ratepayers and how that has been ordered over the last period of time and is going to be ordered over the coming time. There is no doubt that we are at a major junction in relation to retail, to towns and villages and how they operate. Some towns have almost ground to a halt with businesses closing and empty spaces, shopfronts and retail units. We hear time and again about small businesses which in some instances do not have a major footfall and the owners talk about the rates bills they receive. The other argument heard is that rates are not reflective of turnover. There is a whole raft of issues concerning funding and how these rates developed over the years. Deputy Casey is, of course, correct on the issue of the revaluation and that process which is going to come down the tracks. Anywhere that has been revalued has involved the foisting of enormous costs and increases on businesses.

There is an opportunity here for us to reflect on rates and on the funding of local government and how we look at traditional market towns. Towns like Charleville, Kanturk, Millstreet or Newmarket, serviced major hinterlands over the years and they developed, grew and were allowed to flourish and reflect the countryside and the services that they provided to the people, but that has died out. Some of those retail units had been there for generations and were very successful and involved extremely hard work. The way online retail and the other challenges that have arrived to their doors is worth mentioning. We are at a junction as to how our market towns are going to survive into the future. There has to be a new vision as to what units will be in these towns and how we will encourage people to come into them. We have seen a lot of out-of-town planning. We have seen a lot of the major retail units moving out of the towns and changing the town centres, with resulting decay. We have to be very innovative as to how we are going to revalue them.

Some 20 years ago the town renewal scheme came into being and it was an initiative to try to develop towns. A lot of the towns that were granted the town renewal scheme benefitted from it. Units that had decayed and fallen into disrepair were given a tax incentive to try to develop them. It dates from 1999, almost 20 years ago. What happened was that the development that took place and the tax incentive to develop it, with the building materials and work, ended up being virtually cost neutral to the Exchequer. The benefit from it 20 years ago is reflected in towns like Kanturk and Charleville.

We need to be very innovative again to meet these challenges. We can discuss tax and rates scheme in isolation and say that we need better efficiency in terms of collection and such issues. There is also a bigger discussion which is to ensure that we are bringing all of our towns with us. We cannot allow them to die out. We have had discussions in different parts of the country where county towns have almost disappeared, with a loss of identity and business units. On the east coast there are massive housing developments with almost dormant towns, or towns that people are commuting long distances from. We must try and ensure that any initiative we have under this Bill or any other Bill does not have this effect.

As we are discussing rates, how are we going to incentivise people to move into the units that are now vacant in every town in the country? What do we need to put in place? Is it to empower local authorities to give a rates rebates scheme? Is it to empower local authorities to identify the crisis? Some people would say that we have to take stock. Every public representative here, whether they are representing urban or rural Ireland, understands the challenges in retail. We have to go very deeply into it, back to the drawing board and back to a town renewal scheme as existed 20 years ago to give a huge initiative to the rural towns that I represent.

There is a great need for those rural towns to flourish and to be kept alive. We have seen the fantastic education facilities in these county towns. The quality of life people can get from living in these communities is second to none but we have to give a massive incentive to show that we - the State, the Government and the Dáil - want these towns to continue to flourish. If they do not, the countryside around them will decline. As we know the challenges that are coming in regard to agriculture and the future of agricultural communities, we must make sure we keep these towns alive.

The Minister of State suggested he intends to bring forward amendments to the legislation. He needs to be very innovative in making sure that whatever is done in regard to the collection of rates, we have at the heart of it some initiative to keep these communities and county towns alive.

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