Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the opportunity to contribute to the debate. One of the things business people will tell you is about the high input costs, including, for example, energy. We have some of the highest energy costs in Europe. It depends on the particular business but they will tell you about insurance costs. They will all talk about them but some businesses are particularly impacted by it. The Minister of State, Deputy Richmond, spoke about premiums coming down in due course but people need to see them coming down now. It has been something that has been a bone of contention for a long time. There is no doubt that particular businesses, such as main street retail, cafés and so on and so forth, have been particularly struggling. It is really important we try to retain as many as possible because if we lose them we lose a vibrancy in our main street or city. It is important that we listen to people in particular sectors. There is no doubt the impacts can be different.

I had to laugh when the Minister of State started talking about commercial rates as if the only issue was that they were perhaps increased in local authority areas. In actual fact, the structure of the commercial rates date back to the 1850s from Griffith's Valuation. The rates have obviously been reviewed over the years but if you actually look at their structure, they work to the detriment of those in main street areas where they should be advantaged. The first 3 ft. or 4 ft. in are a certain amount. Then if you go a little bit further in, it is another amount. It is lower as you go further into a building. That obviously means that if you have a small building, you are going to end up paying the premium. The other aspect regarding local government funding and commercial rates is that the local government fund was essentially removed when local property tax was introduced.

A lot of business organisations welcomed the introduction of the local property tax because they thought it would be an additional contributor to local authority funding. In fact, it was a replacement tax for the removal of the general purpose grant funded by the ring-fencing of the motor tax fund. The way it has been revised in the baselines recently means that if the population grows, there is a tiny difference in that. You cannot grow the square footage of your county but you get a huge benefit if you have a bigger county in the most recent revision of the baselines. It is very patchy in the benefits that will accrue. I have gone into that in quite considerable detail.

I welcome the doubling of the innovation grant. I do not understand why that did not happen before because it is very useful and I have seen some positive things come out of it. It is a small amount of money but it gives a good benefit. On the surplus in terms of the National Training Fund, it is important there is a medium- and longer term view. We need to resource the National Apprenticeship Office to drive delivery of an action plan for strong alignment between training schemes and employment need. I favour the reinstatement of the apprentice incentivisation scheme to support SMEs and small businesses. If we incentivise apprenticeships by removing the student fees at college, it may encourage more people. The gap in skill sets is an issue. It should be targeted at areas in which there are low levels of registration, like bricklaying, plastering and painting and decorating, which need to be targeted.

People on low pay spend all of their money. There is no money to save. They too spend money in the local economy. That we would do anything other than incentivise getting to a point where we have a living wage is in many ways a fool's errand because those people spend in their local businesses. The cost of living for households has an impact on people's ability to spend because their discretionary spend is impacted due to high energy costs and other costs. Energy has been a particular cost issue over recent years. I hear from people that they notice that the month in which they have a double bill or something like that has an impact on the discretionary spend on local things like hairdressers and cafés. That definitely has an impact. Why our energy costs are so high is repeatedly asked. It has a bearing on households and businesses. High input costs need to be considered. The problem is it is a lazy way of considering it when you look at labour costs without looking at other costs like energy and insurance. I favour looking at the structure of commercial rates because some businesses, particularly main street businesses, have a function beyond the retail side. There is passive security, vibrancy and lack of vacancy in buildings which all impact other businesses nearby. If there is dereliction, there are no two ways about it, it has a bearing.

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