Malcolm Byrne (Wicklow-Wexford, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

There was a reward apparently. The issue I want to raise is related to that, around the repeal of legislation. While much of the legislation here is outdated and traditional, one of the biggest pieces of legislation that dates from that period, from the 1830s, was the commercial rates legislation, on which local government funding was established in Ireland. It was established under the principles that were set out by George IV that led in turn to Griffith's Valuation and so on. We continue to use those outdated mechanisms for the funding of local government. We are using a 200-year-old system of determining how we fund local government. In today's modern enterprise economy, as the Minister of State knows only too well and particularly in her previous brief as Minister of State with special responsibility for retail, a business can be far more successful on a mobile phone and can have a far higher turnover than one that has a very large floor space. For us to continue to base essentially a quarter of the funding of local governments on legislation that is 200 years old is not acceptable. I appreciate it is not directly relevant to some of the key points of this legislation. However, as we are repealing proclamations and legislation from that era, I encourage the Minister of State to look at this. I was disappointed within the programme for Government that there was not a commitment to review the system of commercial rates. I support commercial rates. We need to have properly funded local government. However, to base local government funding on a system that is essentially 200 years old, where the size of the premises determines how much is paid, was fine in the 1830s, 1840s and 1850s but is not fine to do so now in the same way. Certainly a lot of this outdated legislation needs to be repealed.

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