Danny Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent) | Oireachtas source

Businesses are struggling in Kilcummin and all around the place to pay the massive rates that is being demanded of them. Before the new rates regime, traders were able to pay in two payments per year. That has gone down to one payment. They must come up with all the money at the one time. There are all these things.

I refer to the cost of electricity. I will remind the Government of the closure of Bord na Móna every day of the week and all the weeks in the years ahead. Every day since it closed Bord na Móna, the cost of electricity has gone up. What that has meant for and the burden that has placed on businesses trying to stay going is unreal. Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael did that at the behest of the Green Party and I will never let them forget it. It was the Green Party tail which was wagging the Fianna Fáil and the Fine Gael dog. Government parties must accept that when they go to the doors, whether it is in November, December or February, the people will tell them what they have done. They have closed a lot of businesses down. They will have to face the music when the tune will be played in front of them.

Government wants to put more regulations on businesses now, one way or another. The Minister of State shakes her head but that is what is happening. I will not be voting for it, whether the vote is tonight, next week or the week after. I will not be voting for any more regulations on small businesses and companies which are trying to rent buildings to operate out of and trying to employ people and given the cost of electricity and all of those things. The people who are paying for everything, that is, the people who are working, the self-employed and the small businesses employing people, are the ones the Government wants to hit and nail more. The Government wants to nail them to the cross, like our Lord. People are going to stand up and rise up against it, however. The Government will have to face the music when the people cast their votes and the boxes open. The Government will gets its answer for what it has done to people.

Farmers, in a way, are small businesses also. Government wants to regulate them more, as it does for all of the people who are working. We will not stand for it anymore.

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