Joanna Tuffy (Labour)

I, too, welcome the Bill, which is a very good idea. I am not the Labour Party spokesman on local government and only found out about the idea this week. I received a very helpful statement from the Dublin City Business Association explaining the concept. It made reference to its website, www.dublinbids.com, which contains a lot of information on the matter.

The schemes could benefit my community and I will therefore be calling for some in the south County Dublin area. They could be ideal for villages such as Lucan, Clondalkin, Rathcoole and Palmerstown in my area. In Lucan, the council is currently drawing up a village design statement. I proposed this idea and my father, a councillor, proposed a motion on my behalf on foot of which the idea was taken on board. The idea is that the future development of Lucan village will be based on a study that examines the character, history and heritage of the village with a view to preserving it. When the statement is ready, the businesses in Lucan, in conjunction with the council, should set up a BID scheme to do some of the work involved, taking into account the findings in the village design statement. Businesspeople in other villages in the area could engage in useful projects under this legislation.

In south County Dublin, many of the shopping centres are very stark neighbourhood shopping centres built in the 1970s. This is just the way they were designed at the time. Projects could be undertaken in conjunction with local businesses to improve these shopping centres and their immediate environment.

I am very interested in projects that would improve shopfronts and provide street furniture. I am not so sure about cleaning. It would obviously be useful in the context of particular projects but it is primarily the job of the local authority to clean streets. For example, certain villages have hand-cart personnel to clean the streets. However, there are fewer such personnel in some of the villages in south County Dublin today than there were years ago although the populations were smaller and there was less business.

The schemes should not detract from the role of the Government to fund local authorities to do their job properly. Having said that, businesses would want to take the initiative themselves in this regard because they are a factor in the production of some of the litter. A shop, public house or chipper that enjoys good business can contribute to litter in an area and businesses should take a role in this regard. We have moved away from the time when local shopkeepers did much of the cleaning of the streets around their premises — they had a much smaller task in the past. There is definitely a need for local businesses to have a common purpose in dealing with issues such as litter and the improvement of the environment. Getting together to do the job is obviously a good idea.

It is very important that, where extra funding is raised, extra people be brought in to do the work in question. Where it involves the picking up of litter, it should not be a case of paying the council to do work it should be doing in any case. The funding should be used for special projects that would not normally be carried out by local authorities.

Businesses are to vote on whether to become involved in a BID scheme and a majority vote will determine whether the scheme should go ahead. Could a business that refuses to become involved in a scheme refuse to pay the levy? How would the local authority deal with this and has the Minister of State considered it?

There are other good ideas in the legislation. Many businesspeople are resident in the communities in which their businesses are based and they benefit in this regard. It is very important that we regard businesspeople and traders as part of the community. It is good to have them working in partnership with residents and local authorities. This is a very good aspect of the Bill.

I welcome the Bill and hope the BID schemes are promoted in local authority areas outside the Dublin city area and that the concept is sold to businesses throughout the country, including in south County Dublin.