Eamon Scanlon (Sligo-Leitrim, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I think the Minister wants to respond to the debate this evening so I will be brief. I am grateful for the opportunity to raise a number of issues. Many of them have been raised already but we cannot refer to them often enough in my view. I come from rural Ireland and represent rural towns. Quite a number of small businesses in rural towns have closed in recent years because of the recession.

Some of them that are open are struggling. The only things that are keeping some of them open are the name over the door and pride. Some of the people concerned would be better off if they closed their premises because they would not incur costs and expenses. I know of one business which two pensioners are subsidising to keep it open and which is being hit with a rates bill of €4,000 per annum that they cannot afford to pay. A problem has arisen in the past few years and they have been paying what they can afford to pay by way of agreement with the council. Only last week they received a bill for over €20,000. There is no reason for what is happening when it comes to rates.

It is mentioned in the Bill that businesses will have to pay revised rates. There has been a revision of rates countrywide, including in counties Sligo and Roscommon and south Donegal, and in most cases it has been upwards. People could not afford to pay them before they were revised. Now they are being asked to pay more. This will result in business closures and job losses. We hear regular announcements of new supermarkets opening up outside towns and the 25 or 30 jobs to be created, but there is never a mention of the 30 jobs that will be lost in or close to those towns. The businesses concerned are being given a blank cheque. The Minister for Rural and Community Development, Deputy Ring, has established a scheme to regenerate activity in rural towns. It is a good idea and needs to be done, but I hope it is not too late. We have facilitated a lot of out of town shopping, which is fine when it comes to buying large bulky goods, but it is a mistake to allow a food business to be located away from the centre of a town. We are fortunate in Sligo town that Sligo County Council, through its development plan, preserves the centre for food shopping, which helps other surrounding businesses to survive. The bulky items can be purchased two or three miles away in shopping centres. This is working for Sligo. Had the county council allowed what had happened in other towns to happen in Sligo the centre would be a ghost town. It has gone through a rough patch in the past few years, but it is being revived because of the businesses that were maintained in it.

The Bill mentions the imposition of a charge on vacant properties. I know of a number of vacant properties which, if it was possible to rent them at a reasonable sum, the owners would rent because it would generate an income for them, but there is nobody to rent them. That is the harsh reality. Some of the properties have been vacant for years. I have said previously in the House that there should be some help and support for their owners in rural towns, as the premises could be used for residential purposes. We hear a lot about the housing crisis in Dublin, Galway, Cork and Limerick, but it is beginning to affect rural towns because, unfortunately, nothing has been built for the last 18 years. The Government could provide a tax incentive to encourage the owners of premises to upgrade them. Many of them cannot afford to do so without a tax incentive, which would not cost the Government one cent. Offering a tax incentive on rent over a period of ten years would encourage people to upgrade their premises such that others could live in them. That would take pressure off other parts of a county.

On arrears, I do not know how anybody who could not afford to pay and had an arrangement with the local authority will be able to pay €8,000, €9,000 or €10,000 per annum as they just do not have it. That is the reality. I know that different councils do deals, but it is difficult to get that point across. I know of an individual who feels so responsible for the payment of this money. If he had it in the morning, he would write a cheque and pay it. It is affecting his health to the extent that he does not know what to do. I have made arrangements for him to meet an official in the council to try to sort out the problem. To be honest, he would be better off if he closed the premises, but he is proud and does not want to do so. It is a difficult situation, but we are trying to deal with it. The council is wasting its time in going after such a man . He was paying what had been agreed, which I thought at the time was sufficient to ensure he would be okay, but rates are increasing again, which is unfair. There should be a relationship between what a business or premises can earn and the rates payable. There are small businesses that are doing well and generating a lot of profit and businesses four or five times the size of that small business that are paying up to four times more in rates but not earning one tenth of what the small business can earn. There needs to be a relationship between the income of a property and what should be paid in rates. The current system is, or at least used to be, based on a percentage of annual rental income, but it has not worked either.

There was a reference in the debate to bars, pubs and lounges. There are small bars that are doing very well and large bars that have no customers, particularly in rural areas. In the past two months these businesses have been hit hard because of rules and regulations which we debated on another occasion. The Government will notice a big change in early March in the VAT returns for the first two months of te year. The reduction will be very serious. The businesses have also suffered profit-wise in those two months. I accept the need for change, but it must be realistic and achievable. We have to make it easier for people to pay rates. They must at least be able to earn an income to pay them.

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