John Kelly (Labour)

I welcome the Minister and support this common sense Bill. It is all about protecting the jobs created by the US multinationals. However, we should also concentrate on maintaining indigenous jobs, an issue I have raised on numerous occasions in the context of the viability of businesses and commercial rates. I still believe we should have a national review of commercial rates for small businesses in particular. We should build commercial rates into the debate we will have on a proper property tax.

We need to look at the way the Revenue Commissioners do their business, with which I have an issue. I do not believe they look at the bigger picture. The outcome of how they do their business has knock-on effects on other businesses. I am privy to a particular instance where a small wholesaler in the west of Ireland was owed €52,000 by two small businesses, which were paying him over a period of time. He brought down what was owed to him to €52,000. He went to deliver to them one morning but both businesses had been closed down by the Revenue Commissioners. He was owed €30,000 by one of those businesses. The Revenue Commissioners had a fire sale of his assets and got €4,000 for them. The €30,000 worth of stock they sold belonged to this wholesaler. This threatened the viability of his business. On top of that, the two businesses which closed down put 11 people on social welfare. It makes absolutely no sense that they should conduct their business like that when it has an overall effect on our finances.

I refer to a debate we had in the House on cartelism. I recently damaged my iPhone. The damage was irreparable but it was insured, and I am going to collect it today. The person in the phone shop told me the phone was worth €390 so I asked if I could change it for two BlackBerry phones costing €130 each. The person said I could not do so and that if I wanted to change it, all I could get for my iPhone was €40. It begs the question as to what the phone is actually worth. The person in the shop was only willing to give me €40 for it and yet I was told it was worth €390. We need to look at the whole area of cartelism, as does the Competition Authority.