I had coffee with a lovely lady today, a small business owner in Wexford town. I didn’t ask for an endorsement or to use her details publically or even for her vote, I just wanted to sit down over coffee (it was good coffee!) with someone who could give me a snapshot of their situation. Let’s dive in.
The premises she is in holds retail outlets, offices and flats and was once owned by NAMA, but then sold at a gentle price to an investor who polished it up to sell it on piecemeal. Because it had been previously vacant the County Council offered potential buyers an incentive to invest. They would get 75% off their rates on their first year in operation, 50% off in year two, 25% in year three.
It wasn’t so simple. Because this lady wanted to run a coffee shop she had to apply for change of use planning permission, despite it being already zoned as retail. Coffee shops aren’t retail enough apparently. That came with the planning costs.
In order to qualify for the rates incentive, she had to fit out the coffee shop according to various criteria laid out by the Council, a restrictive and more costly exercise. She had to pay for fire certs despite the fact either the original planning had them, or overlooked them; the former should have meant she didn’t need to get them, the latter would have been a planning department oversight. Either way, not her responsibility.
She has been in operation now for almost two years but has not received any of the promised rates incentive back. Her rates were EUR4062 per year, she remains out of pocket 75% of this while heading to the end of her second year. Maybe she’ll get it sometime, who knows.
This year, her rates have increased by EUR1400 to EUR5462. All while the Council owe her the promised incentive. You have to pay it to get it back of course, they like to double the handling for some extraordinary reason.
The Council have given the running of the attached car park to a management firm who provide cameras, security, litter picking, and general maintenance. That costs EUR5000 per year. Both National and local government seem to prefer private firms for anything you can think of.
Her bins need to be cleared often due to food waste and it was no more expensive to pay for a van to remove the waste daily than to pay the bin removal firms weekly. This costs her EUR2500 per year. Rates should of course include bin removal, I’m not even sure what they do include.
Her VAT has gone up from 9% to 13.5% and the wages have increased. If the minimum wage increases for her minimum wage staff, all staff deserve to have a raise relative to this. She pointed out of course that she isn’t averse to paying the minimum wage because in principle this should be a good thing, and should broadly match the regional living wage. But the stranglehold on SME’s and start-ups needs to be loosened from the top in order to allow businesses to pay out further down.
Dublin has revalued the rental values for regional towns, despite the variation from area to area within towns and despite the fact that decisions like this should be made closer to the people and businesses involved. Once Dublin raised the rental valuation on Wexford, the County Council were then free to raise rates on owners given that rates are the Councils main income due to national government underfunding. Rates are not tied to income, to ability to pay, to your business type or location. This owner made the point that setting your rate on your VAT returns would be a way of tying rates to true income, a point worth noting and considering.
Ultimately this business owner employs 27 people, she is a local business employing local people. And she will pay out c.EUR12,500 this year in rates, bin and car park management while awaiting her promised rates rebate, all while paying her increased VAT. What business wouldn’t struggle with that? And we are told the government has not forgotten regional Ireland. It is concerned about us, heck they even grace us with their presence for their national conference and swan about in local villages like tourists. If we’re lucky they plant a tree with a little brass plaque. But the truth is they don’t give a hoot about regional Ireland, and it shows, and has been showing for decades, as we are left to stagnate and pay up.
Its time that changed.
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