Oireachtas Report
Rates on Penrose shop went from €400 to €2,300
In County Westmeath, 39% of small retail shops are seeing increases in their rates, Labour Deputy Willie Penrose told the Dáil. As an example, he cited his own family shop.
“The rates have increased from €400 to €2,300,” he said. “The shop provides two and a half jobs. Someone might say that that is not much.
“It is not great but in a little area like Ballynacargy, where there are fewer than 300 people, it is a help.”
The new valuation system is wiping out small retail shops, he said. “People can pay all of the lip service and do all of the dances on the pin that they like, but let us be honest – rural shops are on their way out.”
People need to support their post offices, shops and petrol stations, he said.
“I am very proud of the fact that if I was driving tonight, I would rather run out of petrol in Kinnegad than go anywhere else to get petrol than in my own home little place of Shanley’s. I have done that since I came here.
“That is what needs support and I appeal to people to support them.”
One could go around picking up great ideas but they are not worth a sugar if one arm of the state, the valuation group, comes along and imposes 400% increases, he said.
“They are on their knees. I have said before that in a few years there will not be a shop between Mullingar and Longford.
“If one is passing through Carrick-on-Shannon, one will not get a shop.
“There will probably be one in Rathowen; that would be the best place. It is a desperate situation.”
One of his greatest disappointments when he had a chance to be minister of state, was that there was no money.
“There was only money for the regeneration of Ballymun and Limerick,” he said.
“We handed over the provision of social housing to the private sector. It was the biggest mistake ever.
“I came out of social authority housing, as did everyone belonging to me. We are very proud of that fact.
“People can condemn the Labour Party but our record in the provision of local authority housing stands the test.”
The tracker mortgage scandal is one of the most shameful examples of wanton greed and arrogance ever displayed since the foundation of the state, Senator Aidan Davitt told the upper house.
He told senators that approximately 13,000 defenceless citizens of Ireland who were mostly in a bad bind already had their positions exacerbated by the very entities for which this state surrendered its sovereignty in order to support and prop up.
“None of us expect charity from banks but to inflict misery and pain needlessly on the coping classes is not acceptable, either in 1917 or 2017,” he said.
“This was not the work of middle ranking bank managers or clerks but a systemic attempt by senior managers to rob and evict their own customers.
“I am calling on the leader and his smiling taoiseach to come out from the bankers’ shadows and lead on this issue.”
Urgent measures are needed to ease the pain and suffering and to rectify the financial problems caused for all victims, he said.
“I am calling on all banks to put an auditor and senior management team in place to liaise with and recompense all affected customers forthwith.
“I am also calling for the resignation of any board members who knew that these underhanded practices were in use.
“Those board members would not last in Ryanair or any other Irish listed company.
“The taoiseach must do us a favour, get down off the ESB man’s ladder and tackle this problem. He must turn his pearly white teeth on the banks and their self-assured board members.”
Mortgage scandal is ‘wanton greed’
The current pension eligibility system for old age pensions is complex, riddled with established and pronounced anomalies, discriminatory and clearly not fit for purpose in the current environment, Deputy Willie Penrose told the Dáil.
It lends itself, he said, to wholesale reform in the interests of equity and fairness rather than ad hoc corrections to some of these glaring problems or anomalies, which generally result in specific problems being addressed with a probable unforeseen adverse consequences down the line and thus triggering another chain reaction.
Undoubtedly, the changes made by the former Minister for Social Protection, Joan Burton, in 2012 by way of increasing the number of bands pertaining to the threshold of eligibility emanated from the long-term strategy set out in the 2010 national pensions framework, he said.
“These have caused significant difficulties by way of reductions of up to €35 per week for some recipients and that matter must be addressed immediately.
“Over 60% of those who have been negatively affected are women. It should not be forgotten that up to 38% of the people involved are men. One cannot but note that some of these adjustments that were, and clearly are, regrettable were not effected for some ulterior or specific reason other than to achieve the necessary savings as set out in the framework at the time.”