Carol Nolan (Laois-Offaly, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Regional Group for tabling this excellent and timely motion, which I will support. I know that in my constituency, there are 1,530 businesses which currently have liabilities of €23 million warehoused as part of the tax debt warehousing scheme. There are 755 businesses in Offaly with tax debts of €11 million, while in Laois there are 775 businesses with €12 million in debt. While the move by the Minister to reduce the interest rate is welcome, it does not remove the key difficulty of the repayments per se. We will all have seen the correspondence from the Restaurants Association of Ireland, highlighting the fact that the recent wave of small independent restaurant and café closures followed directly from the 50% increase in the hospitality sector's VAT rate last September, from 9% to 13.5%. That has been well documented in national and local media. This morning, I am calling for the VAT rate of 9% to be reinstated immediately to prevent further closures of small businesses. We are all seeing it in our constituencies, where businesses just cannot keep going. The VAT rate is the primary cause of closures. According to the Restaurant Association of Ireland and its members, the 9% VAT rate is the only alternative. Hairdressing businesses need this as well.

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