Kate O'Connell (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I am fully aware of what the Minister of State said in his response. I know the process and how rates valuations work. Anyone who pays rates knows all of what the Minister of State said in his response. A briefing session for the man in Cahir is not much good. It will not give him the €80,000 he needs to pay his rates bill. The Valuation Office says the valuation is "reflective". Of course, the office would say that. The office designed it. It is clear to me, and I would imagine it is clear to anybody who knows how to do an equation, that this is not fair and that it is unsustainable for these businesses.

I question how it actually got to this point. Nobody really likes to pay rates but we all pay them because, as businesses, we know why we pay the bill. We have been paying water rates for years. We pay for our streets to be cleaned, although some of us get better street cleaning than others. Businesses know the total take but when a business ends up with a fivefold rates increase, it is very concerning for that business. Small businesses throughout the country that provide essential services for people and products people need are trying to survive. One cannot drive to the local big town to fill a tank with diesel if one does not have diesel in the tank. I believe we are looking at an unfair valuation that has slipped through the net and it is now manifesting as a fivefold bill on people who are trying to keep a business afloat. Let us not forget that many of those businesses have just about kept their heads above water for the last ten years. They may just be about to get into the green from the red and this is the last thing they need.

In the revaluation some businesses got nominal or marginal increases, and these were deserved due to past calculation errors, for example. In this case, for these particular businesses, it seems like an anomaly. It is unfair. I acknowledge that the Valuation Office is independent of the Minister of State's Department but we have a job in here. I am blue in the face saying that we are Teachtaí Dála, we are the messengers of the people. I am here to give the Minister of State the message that this is not fair, it is not sustainable and it is a worry for businesses. I hope the Minister of State will address the issue and that we can address it in this House to a satisfactory ending, so that we do not have businesses throughout the State stressed out and worried about a bill they cannot afford to pay.

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