Michael Comiskey (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I join with colleagues, including Senator Mullins and others, in welcoming the news of the new jobs being created in Athenry by Apple. It is great news for the west. I also welcome the news that the ESB has taken on 300 apprentices in the midlands. In order to attract good quality, top-class jobs we need top quality, clean water and a similar development has occurred in Sligo where AbbVie has taken on a number of new people in recent times because there was a good supply of good quality clean water.

I wish to raise an issue I have raised before in the House relating to rates on small businesses in rural Ireland, in particular on pubs. I believe some pubs in villages are being treated very unfairly. I know of a pub which has been rated very high, on a square footage basis, compared with other pubs in the same town, even though it is doing very similar trade because some work has been done to upgrade the building. The people running the business are unable to pay the huge rates being charged and with rural Ireland dying on its feet and people not going to pubs as much as they used to, this has to be looked at and changed into the future. We must do something.