Mary Ann O'Brien (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister for coming here to listen to us. Earlier, Senator Ó Murchú mentioned 98.5% of our businesses are small businesses with 650,000 people employed by them. Surely that is enough to focus our minds. When America gets a cold, we usually get the flu. All of us have been lucky enough to travel and look at the United States for years. The Minister has seen what the advent of the wonderful business, Walmart, has done to the United States. It is very hard to go into any town in the United States and not notice that the town centre no longer exists. I have visited Dallas, and downtown Dallas no longer exists. It is just a sprawl of little shopping malls with no soul or life.

I am trying to avoid repeating what other Senators have said today and to come up with some ideas. Senator Quinn was involved with one idea, and I wonder if we should ask Linked Finance to come to the Oireachtas audio-visual room and speak to as many Senators and Deputies as we can get. Linked Finance is a crowd-funding initiative. At the second Global Irish Economic Forum, former US President Bill Clinton was the first person I ever heard make a very passionate speech on crowd funding, and he asked our Taoiseach to ask us all to examine crowd funding.

We can speak all day about the ruination of towns and speak about free parking. Perhaps as a knee-jerk reaction we should consider having parking charges at the big centres outside towns and free parking inside towns. I listened to Senator Cáit Keane state every town is different. I spend much time in the medieval city of Kilkenny. It has just managed to retain its vitality and everybody wants to go there. Thomastown is a small village not far from Kilkenny and has managed to retain much of its vitality, although a few multiples have appeared on the outside. We must consider what lessons we can learn from this.

To return to crowd funding, LinkedFinance, the crowd funding initiative established by Senator Feargal Quinn, Kingsley Aikins and Bobby Kerr, has created 50 jobs and hopes to fund 200 small businesses by the end of the year. It has funded a butcher, a baker and a candlestick maker. How cute this sounds, but it is the truth. The butcher was funded locally by 400 fans and customers. A small amount of money went in, but all of the people concerned feel they have a part of the business. The butcher has their e-mail addresses and is able to social network with them and send them special offers. They feel they are part of the business.

A total of €1 million has been raised by the crowd funding company. A similar crowd funding company in England which has a population of 60 million people has raised £100 million for small businesses which are owned by local people. Instead of rushing into the large multiple which has wonderful offers and great powers of advertising, if one feels one is part of the butcher or local community, or one has sponsored a business, of course, one will take the time to go there. I will contact LinkedFinance to find out more about it and how we can bring this expertise to counties Donegal, Tipperary, Kildare, Kilkenny and other areas.

In Killarney a large international multiple has established a beautiful petrol station beside its big store and offered lower prices. As we are all in desperate times, people fill their cars at this new petrol station. All of the other petrol stations in lovely Killarney are now closed. We cannot allow this to happen. There is free trade - I am not sure how we can stop it - but this is not the way to go. I will balance this with something positive. A German multiple in a County Cork town has successfully sought planning permission to build a scout hall in the town and 120 scouts are over the moon and delighted. It is not always the case that the big guy is bad. We should examine linking local authorities with the big boys, supporting small businesses with crowd funding and linking with local authorities to sort out the issue of parking. Why would one not go to the lovely big centre outside town where one can park one's car and walk across the free car park to do one's shopping? I will admit one's soul would not be nourished. It is hard to find parking in town and if one has no change, it is all a disaster. One then gets a ticket and feels completely fed up. We must stop this. Senator must stop talking. Senator loves small business. Senator feels the centre of town is the life and soul of this small country of ours. The United States showed us the wrong way; then it happened in England and now it is happening to us. Let us examine the issues of crowd funding and car parking, but more than this, let us get all of our colleagues together to help move forward and use initiative.