Mayo Fine Gael TD John O’Mahony has promised that if re-elected to Dáil Éireann, he will campaign vigorously for a restructuring of how rates on business premises are calculated by local authorities.
Speaking after being contacted by a number of business people in Mayo whom he said were facing closure, Deputy O’Mahony said that unless the system was completely overhauled more and more businesses would cease to exist.
“I have spent hours with various types of business people today and they told me that they could not see any future in their businesses. The economic climate is so bad that the rates demand was the final nail in the coffin for so many of them,” he said.
Dep O’Mahony said that he knew of retail outlets and filling stations that had closed their doors in recent weeks. “The rates demand is something that can be controlled by local authorities and instead of insisting on payment of the rates, it should be possible to implement a system whereby the economic climate is taken into consideration before issuing the demand,” he said.
He said that he envisaged a system whereby there would be flat basic rate and a sliding scale based on turnover used to determine the rate demand. “It would be a far more equitable system and would allow far more businesses to survive. The system we have at the moment is just not flexible enough and unless it’s changed more and more people will end up on the dole queue,” he said.
