Feargal Quinn (Independent) | Oireachtas source

Figures last month indicated that consumer sentiment is higher than it has been for seven years, and there is a great confidence that what is happening in the economy will lead to success. I am very worried nonetheless about what I have heard on radio, particularly yesterday and at other times, about us having to change direction now. That is mainly coming from the Labour Party, and I can understand that. If at this stage we change direction too suddenly in order to make ourselves more citizen-friendly, there is a serious danger that we could throw away all the good work of recent times. I urge that in the next two years we take care to ensure we do not throw away all the good work that has been done.

For example, this House has taken an interest through legislation in upward-only rent reviews. The Government could look at this in a customer-friendly manner that would also help citizens while helping to get our shops open again. The issue of upward-only rents was mentioned by the two parties in Government and it was included in their programme for Government but they seem to have changed their mind. We have put the legislation through the Seanad but can we ensure it gets through the Dáil? If the President decides there is a question over whether it should become law, he can send it to the Supreme Court for a decision. At that stage we would know if the legislation would be inside the limits of the Constitution. Tackling the issue will get shops open, and 12 business associations - which to my knowledge had never come together before - are urging the Government to do something about this issue. We have demonstrated what can be done in this House so we should encourage the Government to take it to the next stage and make it law.

When I came in this morning I noted significant amounts of graffiti in different places around Dublin. We are not nearly as bad as other countries but if we are to encourage tourists to come to the country because it looks so well, we should see what can be done to avoid this graffiti. A while back a local garda saw two young fellows putting graffiti on a wall; a neighbour took the two 14-year-olds by the scruff of the neck home to their parents. One parent said that boys would be boys but the other parents got their boy to clean the graffiti with a toothbrush, and it took him a week to clean what he had put on the wall. There are steps we can take to help encourage tourism in the country, and we should make graffiti unacceptable.