Jimmy Harte (Labour) | Oireachtas source

I welcome Senator Mary Ann O'Brien's contribution and fully support her call for a debate on the death of town centres. I am sure everyone has noticed how they are dying. I have a business in Letterkenny and in the past six or seven years many shops have closed. Car parking has become expensive on main streets, whereas free parking is available outside shopping centres. Multinationals which benefited from lax planning by previous Administrations that decided to expand towns the wrong way and destroyed town centres by granting planning permission to multinationals to set up on the outskirts of towns have a role to play. Those that set up in town centres were beneficial. We should have a special debate on how we can address the death of town centres. Every Member knows main streets are being populated by bookmakers and businesses that close on Friday evening and do not open until Monday morning, which does not benefit tourism. I encourage shopkeepers to put signs outside their premises written in both Irish and English. I have done this and it has proved to be an attraction, as it implies there is a different culture and the main street is not the same as Main Street, Manchester. We should also debate how rates are worked out. They should be to the benefit of a business rather than to its detriment.